Arts + Culture

Sithara Ranasinghe|Analysis

‘Adulterations Detected:’ on the human impulse to prettify our food with poison

Susan Morris|Cinema

Dorothy and friends: Top film festival docs spotlight the women who’ve shaped media

Just a click tick after the release of ‘Wicked: For Good,’ DO’s arts commentator curates the best new documentaries on women who’ve captivated us on stage and screen — including Dorothy Gale herself.

Ellen McGirt|Profiles

How to make a horror film with no money, no script, and lots of friends

Alexis Haut|Interviews

How production designer Grace Yun turned domestic spaces into horror in 'Hereditary' and heartache in 'Past Lives'

Grace Yun, production designer of Hereditary and Past Lives, on how she builds worlds where fear, memory, and emotion take physical form.

Yahia Lababidi|Essays

‘The museum-going cannibal:’ On Francis Bacon

On the heels of this month’s Louvre heist, a poet reflects on his own hellish — and oddly heartening — encounter at a famed museum.

Delaney Rebernik|Fresh Ink

The Design of Horror | The Horror of Design: a series

This October, we plumb the depths of horrific design and designed horrors. Welcome to Hell.

Masha Safina|Peru's Sacred Valley

The layers of value creation

Our modern perception of value is shaped by scarcity. Alternative systems that center abundance and relational exchange offer a more hopeful future.

Baxstar Jonmarie Ferguson|Analysis

Dancing with AI: how next-gen game designers are taking the lead

Ashley Lukasik|Peru's Sacred Valley

Foraging design futures in Peru

A four-day cultural immersion in Peru’s Sacred Valley fosters four principles for the future of design, informed by the region’s centuries-old Indigenous philosophies

Ellen McGirt|Peru's Sacred Valley

Ashley Lukasik is designing a more meaningful way to convene

Introducing a series on design lessons learned from a multi-disciplinary immersion in Peru’s Sacred Valley

Books, films, and more: Design Observer covers the long form

Sigourney Schultz|Cinema

Dispirited Away: In the wrong hands, ‘Ghiblified’ genAI images erode ethos, empathy, and our very humanity

An art historian who grew up inside Pixar Studios reflects on what we lose when art once rendered through deliberate labor and deep care can be reproduced in seconds — and weaponized just as quickly.