Rob Walker

Rob Walker|Essays

A Successful Failure

Yiying Lu is an artist and designer in Sydney, Australia. One image in her portfolio is of a peaceful whale held aloft by a small flock of birds, aka as the “Fail Whale” of Twitter.

Rob Walker|Essays

Dumb and Dumber 2.0

American consumers have long shown an “exceptional willingness” to buy, for instance, technology products before their utility is clear.

Rob Walker|Essays

Talk is Cheap

As the financial crisis snowballed this year, retail sales fell sharply. Curiously, many assessments of this development treated it as an exciting new trend.

Rob Walker|Essays

Subconscious Warm-Up

The Speedo LZR Racer suits worn byMichael Phelps and other world-class swimmers. Promoted as a design breakthrough and worn by the most victorious Olympian in history, it offers a potent blend of functional promise and emotional …

Rob Walker|Essays

Shared Memories

Many of the images reproduced in Scrapbooks: An American History, by Jessica Helfand, date back 50, 80, even 100 years. Reproduced in color and spread across wide pages, the anonymous scrapbook creators could hardly have imagined such …

Rob Walker|Essays

This Joke’s for You

In the movie Idiocracy, an average and unambitious guy played by Luke Wilson hibernates as part of a military experiment and wakes up 500 years later. The America he wakes up to has devolved radically.

Rob Walker|Essays

Can a Dead Brand Live Again?

Is it possible to revive a dead brand?

Rob Walker|Essays

Imitation of Life

Spend enough time looking at design and new-product Web sites and it’s easy to spot recurring themes. One of the most interesting is things that look like other things.

Rob Walker|Essays

Handmade 2.0

The Handmade Consortium, Etsy and the DIY moment.

Rob Walker|Essays

Tobias Wong on Consuming Consumer Consumption

Tobias Wong on Consuming Consumer Consumption.

Rob Walker|Essays

False Endorsement

There is no shortage of logos in the world, no dearth of brands striving for consumer allegiance and no chance that the creation of new brands and logos will cease.

Rob Walker|Essays

Timeless Object

What makes a useless-seeming watch potentially more valuable — in identity terms — than, say, regular jewelry?