The Observatory Newsletter

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

Michael Bierut|Audio

Moving Pictures

Aylan Kurdi, photojournalism, airline posters, early television

Jessica Helfand|Audio

New Horizons

Pluto is at the outer limits of the solar system. Porto is at the end of Europe.

Jessica Helfand|Audio

Places and Faces

Art, nostalgia, and community

Michael Bierut|Audio

M Is for a Million Things

Milan, Mario Batali, Michelle Obama, Moshe Safdie, Modernism, MOO (our sponsor), Michael Erard, metaphor design, Macintosh icons, Massimo Vignelli....

Michael Bierut|Audio

150 Years, 7 Minutes, 6 Seconds

Visualizing business data, a logo to mark Canada’s 150th anniversary of Confederation, and more.

Michael Bierut|Audio

East Meets West

Or collaboration vs. “one person making one thing at one time”

Michael Bierut|Audio

Inside the Lines

Michael and Jessica discuss the The Grid, which uses artificial intelligence to design websites, the history of grids, and the unlikely success of coloring books for adults.

Michael Bierut|Audio

The Observatory: The Inevitable

On this episode, Michael and Jessica talk about death (not taxes): how designers have to think about preventing death and representing death, and whether death is “just another design challenge.” Also, the color blue.