The Observatory

With Bobby C. Martin, Jr.: rebranding Champions Design; football in Washington; demands for change at design schools; cooking during quarantine.

Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration; Unorthodox; My Brilliant Friend; The Affair; Anil Dash on the dangers of social media; Anna Wiener on Silicon Valley; quarantine dreams

Zoom aesthetics and COVID-19; Kyle Chayka on minimalism; Deborah Berke on shared spaces; Jessica Salfia’s poem “The First Lines of Emails I’ve Received While Quarantining”; Megan O’Grady on artistic recluses

Making art and design during the COVID-19 pandemic; Christoph Niemann and Daniella Zalcman; Adam Schlesinger; spec scripts for Larry David

Looking at COVID=19: Flattening the curve, Washington Post designers Harry Stevens on visualizing social distancing, Alissa Walker on how dots are people, Stephen Sondheim at 90

COVID-19, social distancing, Luō Dàwèi’s One Thousand Families project, hiring product designers, Eric Rosenberg’s prop designs for The Plot Against America, Joanne McNeil’s Lurking

With guest host Alissa Walker of L.A. Podcast: Barbara Kruger at Frieze Week; Destination Crenshaw; homelessness; urban design competitions, Rose Lyster on air travel; Molly Young on garbage language

The Trump Administration’s draft executive order Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again, the rise of the blur, a CBS brand book at the California Antiquarian Fair, Anna Wiener’s Uncanny Valley

Andrew Cuomo’s old-school political graphics; ridiculous subway ads, real and fake; Vaughan Oliver, John Baldessari, Sonny Mehta

Christmas cards, the Charles and Ray Eames collection, Didones, the Chobani effect, Hong Kong protest art, a dog who plays Jenga, Uncut Gems.

101 political images of 2010s; plus Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror; Ian McEwan’s Machines Like Me; Beck’s Hyperspace; Underworld’s Oblivion with Bells; The 1619 Project podcast; Esther Perel’s Where Should We …

Donald Trump’s handwriting; Michael Bloomberg, design patron; Jessica Helfand’s Face: A Visual Odyssey; Victor Papanek’s Design for the Real World; Heather Dewey-Halborg’s DNA portraits; Bulgarian socialist graphics