Media

Paul Maliszewski|Essays

Taking Things Seriously XI

Rick Poynor|Dialogues

We Found It at the Movies: Part I

Rick Poynor: Looking back, it’s surprising how long we’d known each other before it emerged that we shared an obsession for film.  Adrian Shaughnessy: Your obsession with film came as a surprise. Before lending you …

Rick Poynor|Dialogues

We Found It at the Movies: Part II

The second installment of Rick Poynor and Adrian Shaughnessy’s conversation about film. Can genre movies express a personal vision? Are films blurring into other media? And what’s the state of film culture today?

The Editors|Miscellaneous

Books Received: Spring 2009

New books continue to pile up at Design Observer. Again, we want to share the fifty-plus recently published titles we've received over the past few months. We are happy to support the many design writers and publishers who create these …

Denise Gonzales Crisp|Dialogues

A Critical View of Graphic Design History

Now comes yet another historical survey, Graphic Design History: A Critical Guide by Johanna Drucker and Emily McVarish. Denise Gonzales Crisp and Rick Poynor have been marking pages, making notes and exchanging views...

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Iron Man: The Screen Behind the Screen

Robert Downey, Jr. in Iron Man. 2008, Paramount Pictures. Photographs courtesy of Hollywood Chicago.In Barry Levinson’s 1994 thriller, Disclosure, Demi Moore plays a computer specialist who is sued for sexual harassment. (Michael Douglas …

Rosamond W. Purcell|Essays

Taking Things Seriously XII

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.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

National Scrapbooking Day

Scrapbook kept by Frederick Nixon-Nirdlinger, Philadelphia, PA 1909. Special Collections, University of Delaware Library.Today, scrapbooking enthusiasts across the United States celebrate National Scrapbooking Day, heralding the meteoric …

Steven Heller|Essays

The Sky Is Falling

Atomic test at Bikini Atoll, 1955Remember the scene in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall in Dr. Flicker’s examining room where Alvy Singer’s angst-ridden mother tells the doctor her son is depressed? As the doctor furiously puffs on a …

Adam Harrison Levy|Essays

The Passion of George Lois

How adman George Lois chronicled the sixties with his cover designs for Esquire magazine, with a peek behind the scenes at the legendary famous Muhammad-Ali-as-St. Sebastian photoshoot.

Debbie Millman|Audio

Robynne Raye + Michael Straussberger

Robynne Raye and Michael Straussberger are graphic designers and co-founders of the acclaimed Seattle-based firm Modern Dog.