Social Good

Tom Vanderbilt|Essays

Pleasures and Pathos of Industrial Ruins

A few months ago, I met with a contractor to discuss building a small bridge at my Catskills property in upstate New York. When I blanched at the price, he noted that steel, at the moment, was quite expensive. "It's all going to China," he …

Michael Bierut|Essays

Colorama

Grand Central Terminal's enormous Colorama displays by Kodak documented a suburban fantasy world for millions of commuters.

William Drenttel|Essays

Does Aspen Have A Future?

From Aspen Magazine, Vol. 1 No. 1, 1965The American Center for Design was for many years the most dynamic, innovative design organization in America. It spearheaded conferences about interface design and business-design case studies. It …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Ask Not What Your Typeface Can Do For You: Ask What You Can Do For Your Typeface

Photo: James Estrin / The New York TimesAn article in today's New York Times celebrates the suitably-named Gotham for its presence, etched into a 20-ton slab of Adirondack granite, in the Freedom Tower cornerstone. The choice of a …

William Drenttel|Essays

Learning from Las Vegas: The Book That (Still) Takes My Breath Away

Why did its authors hate the design of Learning from Las Vegas so much?

Michael Bierut|Essays

Information Design and the Placebo Effect

It turns out that New York City is filled with buttons for pedestrians to activitate "Walk" signals at busy intersections that have never worked. Does pressing these useless buttons provide us with a sense that at least we're doing …

Michael Bierut|Essays

(Over)explaining Design

The premature release (noted by Bill Drenttel below) of Michael Arad and Peter Walker's World Trade Center memorial design sans explanation, for one day at least, was refreshing. It's worthy to make design more understandable -- this site …

William Drenttel|Essays

Rationalizing Absence

[Left: Michael Arad + Peter Walker, Reflecting Absence, 2004. Right: James Turrell, Hover, 1983.]I believe these images speak for themselves. When a German photo agency mistakenly released new renderings of the World Trade Center memorial …

Rick Poynor|Essays

Stephen Gill: Behind the Billboard

Designers are battlers against entropy: a vital task, but taking the long view, often a doomed, quixotic mission. Stephen Gill’s photographs, showing the disorderly zones behind billboards, offer a reality check.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Sign Language: Endangered Species or Utopian Uprising?

Many of my students have, over the years, considered the street writ large as a kind of flexible, experimental canvas. Their sources — and here I would include everything from Aaron Siskind to Gabriel Orozco — inform work in …

Rick Poynor|Essays

Remember Picelj

The English-speaking world knows little about the design history of Communist Europe. Few will have heard of the distinguished Slovenian Ivan Picelj. His prints ask us to remember; they are full of yearning.

Rob Walker|Essays

The Guts of a New Machine

The iPod, a digital music player, it weighing just 6.5 ounces and holding about 1,000 songs.