Social Good

William Drenttel|Essays

Meet Me in St. Louis: The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts

Exterior view, The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. Photograph by Robert Pettus, 2004.Nine months ago I went to St. Louis and had a memorable art experience. In and of itself, such an event should not seem so special. This is, after all, …

Kenneth Krushel|Essays

Santa Fe Diarist

Photograph by Kenneth Krushel, 2006.What is it about the United States that, more often than not, seems to insist upon appropriating a sense of indigenous culture, only to transform that culture into a mythological theme park? Historical …

Lawrence Weschler|Essays

Languorous Bodyscapes

Mysterious Cloud Over Los Angeles, Photographer Unknown, November 1976.So I was visiting my friends Pepe and Dionora in Santiago, Chile, a while back — they're great art lovers and their apartment nests a collection of marvelous …

Debbie Millman|Audio

Grant McCracken

Grant McCracken is the author of Culture and Consumption I, Plenitude, Big Hair, Culture and Consumption II: Markets, Meaning and Brand Management, The Long Interview, Flock and Flow, …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

What We Talk About When We Talk About Design History

From the packaging of our belongings to the presentation of our surroundings, most of us recognize that design has, over the course of the past century, become a ubiquitous component in everyday life. Design is signage and graffiti and …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Civilian Typography: The Power and The Fury

Left: Cover of Spoiled, Tom Varisco, 2005; Right: Photograph by Steph Goralnik, 2005.John Updike once wrote that the "itch" to make dark marks on white paper is shared by writers and artists. As for designers, that same itch translates to …

Julie Lasky|Slideshows

Edward Hopper, Village Person

An acquaintance of mine teaches at New York University's School of Social Work. Not long ago, while I was visiting her in the department's Greek Revival mansion at 1 Washington Square North, she led me upstairs to the fourth floor with the …

Mark Lamster|Essays

Seeing Red

Red Bogart blamed technology and changing attitudes for the reason he sold Camp Tomahawk, but Mark Lamster knew there was something more to the story.

Lorraine Wild|Essays

Think Regional, Act Annual

Print Regional Design Annual, cover by Abbott Miller, 2005Flying from New York to Los Angeles last week, I spent the long hours at 35,000 feet doing something I had not done in years: I read Print Magazine's "2005 Regional Design Annual" …

Michael Bierut|Essays

Looking for Celebration, Florida

An assessment of Celebration, Florida, a town built by the Walt Disney Company on "New Urbanist" planning principles in its tenth anniversary year.

Michael Bierut|Essays

Four Years After

After four years of ambiguity and contention and the World Trade Center site, Ellsworth Kelly's 2003 proposal seems wiser than ever.

William Drenttel|Essays

Small Town Meetings

Zoning regulations are how a town designs its future. They determine what kind of development is encouraged, and what kind is discouraged. In Meetings, Paul Shambroom visited 150 local government meetings in 32 states. The photographs are …