Politics

Sam Holleran|Essays

Designing the “Real Deal”

Is there room for capital-D design in a political landscape that equates its absence with authenticity? We examine the political design landscape two years after the red MAGA cap.

Steven Heller|Essays

Closing New York’s Penal Colony

How design is playing an integral role in the campaign to close Rikers Island.

Brian LaRossa|Opinions

Voting ≠ Hoping

American politics would have us believe that hoping alone is capable of heavy lifting.

Michael Bierut|Audio

Episode 91: Voter Experience

Voter suppression by Republicans, The McKinsey Design Index, Lovevery, Photogrammar

Pamela Worth|Interviews

Three Billboards Outside New Haven

Hope for the best. Vote for science.

Steven Heller|Essays

Creative Action Network: Profiting From A Nonprofit

CAN’s mission is putting artists to work telling stories that matter.

Michael Bierut|Audio

Episode 84: The Politician’s Gaze

Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, a White House without culture, John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood, early Ivan Chermayeff book covers

Andre Barnet|Books

The Age of Wreckers and Exterminators

For many people, the sudden appearance of Carson’s and Jacobs’s brilliant and prescient books was one of those moments that seem, in retrospect, to have changed the very order of things.

James Cartwright|Essays

Flipping the Script

How two progressive organizations, Tactical 2017 and Flippable, use open-source data and strategic voting, and why that might dictate the future of our elections.

Lilly Smith|Interviews

Artifact: 2000 Palm Beach County Ballot

This article is the first in a new and ongoing Design Observer series, Artifact, which takes one piece out of AIGA’s Design Archives and asks a design expert in the topic being observed to reflect on its current impact in the …

Laetitia Wolff|Interviews

Design for Democracy: Building Community Power

Design articulates choice at a time when there are seemingly no choices or only binary choices.

James Cartwright|Essays

Can Demagogues be Designed out of Democracy?

Dutch transition designer Rudy van Belkom and Irish digital design agency FrontEnd are leading the charge to combat democratic dissatisfaction. Is it a pipe dream, or can we design a different way?