Arts + Culture

Susan Morris|Essays

Design+ at Sundance, Slamdance, and the NYFF

One of the conveniences of the pandemic has been the ability to watch film festivals from the comfort of home — no waiting in queues, no schlepping in the snow, no talking in the audience.

Debbie Millman|Audio

Design Matters From the Archive: Marilyn Minter

Sex, power, feminism—Marilyn Minter reflects on her rise, being banished from the art world, and her return and personal revolution.

Susan Morris|Essays

Utopias at the Architecture & Design Film Festival

The surprising trend in this year’s Architecture & Design Film Festival (ADFF) was Utopias.

Richard Baird|Books

Akogare 憧れ

Akogare, like many Japanese words, is loaded with nuance, and is difficult to translate directly to English.

George Aye|Essays

How We Shook Up the World’s Oldest Student Design Competition

A story in Design Observer started a life-changing collaboration between the RSA in London and a small design studio in Chicago, Illinois.

Jessica Helfand|Audio

S8E4: Ari Melenciano

Ari Melenciano is an artist, creative technologist, educator, and the founder of Afrotectopia, a social institution fostering interdisciplinary innovation.

Jessica Helfand|Audio

S8E3: Maxwell Anderson

Maxwell Anderson is the president of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation and Community Partnership.

Steven Heller|Essays

Reverse Migration: A Growing Pain

I am a rock ribbed, original New Yawka.

Steven Heller|Essays

Lou Rogers: Suffragist Cartoonist

Rogers was an outspoken reformer, using her voice and body as weapons in the battles for the vote and other fundamental human rights that were denied women.

Kathleen Meaney|Essays

From A to B (Africa to Bauhaus)

We can trace African innovation through modern art, but how about through modern design?

Jessica Helfand|Audio

Episode 130: Tackling History

With Bobby C. Martin, Jr.: rebranding Champions Design; football in Washington; demands for change at design schools; cooking during quarantine.

Steven Heller|Interviews

Jerseys To Remember

Since 2013, in the wake of the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer, the New York based photographer and filmmaker Raafi Rivero  has designed a series of basketball jerseys with the team name “Unarmed.”