The Observatory Newsletter

Michael Bierut|Audio

Prisons and Paradise

Solitary confinement, virtual reality, design thinking for prisoners, Drew Hodges’s Broadway, The Paradise, Prince’s unpronounceable glyph

Michael Bierut|Audio

High Maintenance

Innovators and maintainers, Bernie and Hillary, mapping and infrastructure, algorithms and Rembrandt

Michael Bierut|Audio

Shapes and Japes

Corporate design humor from Mic Drop to bland.ly, photoviz, remembering Zaha Hadid

Michael Bierut|Audio

Crowd Control

Tay, Boaty McBoatface, New Zealand, emoji, and the madness of crowds

Michael Bierut|Audio

The Logosphere

The Met and the logosphere, designing with scientists, the Clinton-Sanders graphics race

Michael Bierut|Audio

Magic on the Page

Matthias Buchinger, Beyonce, Mohawk Superfine at 70, Umberto Eco

Michael Bierut|Audio

Guys and Dolls

Barbie and Rey, food and design, 30 years after the Challenger disaster

Michael Bierut|Audio

Working-Class Heroes

British art schools, Bowie, Alan Rickman, the State of the Union, cannabis chocolate

Michael Bierut|Audio

State of the Chart

Data visualization, The Big Short

Michael Bierut|Audio

Magnitude

Climate change, Drake’s take on James Turrell, an IKEA horror catalog

Michael Bierut|Audio

The Opposite of Ugly

Michael Bierut’s monograph, the lost art of album art, ugliness

Michael Bierut|Audio

Basic Human Needs

IKEA and Facebook efforts for refugees, e-reading, Adrian Frutiger, Phil Patton