Design Observer Twenty Years 2003-2023





Twenty Years of Design Observer
Journalism
Twenty Years of Design Observer
Entertainment
Twenty Years of Design Observer
Humanism
Debbie Millman | Design Matters with Debbie Millman
Kevin Kelley
Adam Harrison Levy | Essays
The History of Being Found
Steven Heller | Essays
The Thrill is Gone: A Collector’s Lament
Adrian Shaughnessy | Terms of Service
Pan Afrikan Design Institute
Steven Heller | Essays
Incompetence Is a Skill
Kaleena Sales | Terms of Service
Teaching Black Designers
Debbie Millman | Audio
Ping Zhu
Connect 4 | Audio
Victor Newman and Ana Amaro: Becoming an Animator
Adrian Shaughnessy | Essays
Philosophy, Graphic Design and Virtue of Clarity
Francisco Laranjo | Essays
Critical Graphic Design: Critical of What?
Steven Heller | Essays
WAR! What’s it Really Good For?
Jessica Helfand | Essays
Why Write About Graphic Design?
Laetitia Wolff | Essays
Design is Capital: Five Lessons I Learned from Lille
Harriet Gridley | Terms of Service
Terms of Service: March Edition
Andrew Shea | Essays
Flies in Urinals: The Value of Design Disruptions
Alexandra Lange | Opinions
Why Nicolai Ouroussoff Is Not Good Enough
| Books
Sign Painting
Connect 4 | Audio
Man-Wai Cheung and Angel Blanco: “Mom, Dad, I Want to Be a Designer”
Alexandra Lange | Essays
Lessons from the High Line
William Drenttel | Essays
Stop The Plant: The Failure of Rendering
Jessica Helfand | Essays
Under The Microscope
Scott Berkun | Books
The Powerful Decide
Alexandra Lange | Essays
Standard Operating Procedure
Adam Harrison Levy | Essays
Jump Cut: Thoughts on Editing
Debbie Millman | Audio
Celebrating Pride

The Design Observer Twenty: Our Partners


Observed


At 10 AM today,  Wednesday, October 4, show your support for libraries and the freedom to read on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and more. Use the hashtag #FreedomToRead to share why open access to books, information, and knowledge is important to you or your community. More here.

On nurturing creativity in children—and for the rest of us.

The future of design education—a compendium of writings by a powerhouse roster of seasoned educators and practitioners—and downloadable here.

Architect Beverly Willis, who got her start as a designer in Hawaii, where she studied fresco painting under the painter and muralist Jean Charlot, has died. She was 95.

Horace Ové, considered the first Black director to make a feature-length film in Britain (and knighted for his services to media) has died. The Trinidadian photographer and filmmaker was 86.

Did you know the iconic Mini Cooper owes its design inspiration to a Greek designer? You do now!

“Doesn’t it just scream “lived-in”? Probably because I was screaming so maniacally while bludgeoning it with my spoon.” A three year old takes on interior design, via McSweeneys. 

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month? Dial it back, says the design columnist at the Los Angeles Times. “What I’m not celebrating is the related graphic design, which is often a pastiche of brightly-colored patterns and stylized decorative fonts with awful names like ‘Taco Modern.’”

Rami Al-Ali becomes the first Syrian designer to be recognized by the Business of Fashion list.

Want to fully embrace the circular economy? “The design industry needs to let go of its obsession with the new and start venerating the patina of age,” says Katie Treggiden.

The world’s oldest shoes — sandals, actually — have been found in a cave in Spain. Estimated to be 6,200 years old, the elegant weave and classical details took the wearer from day to night in comfort and style.

AI and regulating the use of actor likenesses move front and center as contract talks continue in Hollywood. (Here is SAG-AFTRA’s dental plan information.)

No, Tom Hanks is not trying to sell you an affordable dental plan. (It’s an AI deep fake video.)

Trauma-informed design “realizes how the physical environment affects individuals, recognizes that it can have a physiological and emotional impact,” In Pittsburgh, thinking about housing, dignity, and more.

“Instead of rooms or units, each resident gets a “home” on a quiet little indoor street reminiscent of the neighborhoods many of them grew up in.” Rethinking nursing home design, and its impact on memory care.

From tiny, moss-enshrouded plantation plots to sprawling urban sites, tens of thousands of Black burial grounds lie in ruins, their history fading or lost. Three Black women, shocked by the condition of cemeteries in Washington, Georgia, and Texas, have turned their anger into action. None have prior experience in historic preservation, landscape architecture, or design. But like many others working to save Black cemeteries, they view the work as a sacred trust and payment of a debt to ancestors who led the way.

What does it mean to say games have objective truth in them? Game enthusiasts, look no further. (And you should subscribe to this wonderful newsletter, too.)

Helen Cammock’s I WIll Keep My Soul is a new “prismatic” artist’s book, just out from our friends at Siglio Press. The book also corresponds to a city-wide, multi-site exhibition of film, performance, music, archival documents and books opening in New Orleans in October.

Legendary editor George Gendron interviews legendary everything, Gloria Steinem.

A Native American man was shot at a New Mexico rally acknowledging the removal of a controversial statue of conquistador Juan de Oñate. The rally was organized by Native American group The Red Nation, the attacker was wearing a red MAGA hat. The victim is in stable condition.



Jobs | October 04