Observed | January 15
A beautiful remembrance by Melissa Harris about Mercy Cunningham, in the
New York Review of Books this week. [JH]
Observed | January 14
Are typefaces political? Researchers find "serif and bold is rated as more conservative, while sans serif and italics is rated as more liberal" [MB]
Congratulations to the entire AIGA community on their wonderful
new executive director, Bennie F. Johnson! Here’s to bright futures. [BV]
Observed | January 13
Anyone interested in a “
book about the future of human beings, as viewed by some of today‘s most creative minds working at the intersection of biology and technology...Think of it as a guide to your future self.”? Because we are! #FundThis [BV]
Observed | January 10
Donald Norman says
we have to change the way we educate designers. [JH]
Observed | January 09
This is a very specific genre and
Andrew Cushing is nailing it with Veronica Gent-level skills: “Name a fake startup and I’ll write an ad for it in the style of an NYC subway campaign.” [MB]
Take 2 minutes and
ride shotgun through mid-century LA with Ed Ruscha’s photos and Jack Kerouac’s words. [BV]
Observed | January 08
“The short answer is that the intersection of art + science is in my blood... my favorite kind of artist residency is one where I get to work with scientists.” Our very own
Jessica Helfand joins Caltech as a Winter 2020 artist-in-residence. [BV]
Royal Mail has released a set of stamps
celebrating a golden era of British video game design from the 1980s and 90s. [BV]
Observed | January 07
Los Angeles’ favorite logos. (via
James I. Bowie) [BV]
Observed | January 02
Brand New‘s
Armin Vit ranks the top twelve clickbait-iest design stories of 2019. [MB]
Observed | December 30
New research finds that
typefaces are perceived as having political characteristics, with sans serif fonts seen as more liberal, and serif fonts as more conservative. (via
James I. Bowie) [BV]
Observed | December 29
Desperately sad to announce that
Vaughan Oliver died peacefully today, with his partner Lee by his side. Great loss of friend and design hero. Vaughan Oliver (1957—2019). [AS]
Observed | December 27
Continuing the blessed holiday tradition that began at Design Observer, now at Curbed, Alexandra Lange + Mark Lamster
review the year in design (with a special look back over the decade‘s greatest hits & misses). [MB]
Observed | December 17
A photographer
captures the sculptural landscapes of California skateparks. [BV]
Observed | December 11
Matisse felt an intense love for books, and the care and attention he lavished on them included not just his illustrations, but also the selection of paper, typeface, and layout. [BV]
Observed | December 10
Stanford’s d.school attempts to
move beyond Post-its on whiteboards. (via
James I. Bowie) [BV]
Observed | December 06
“I simply wanted to explore the interiority of both myself and others. I wanted to focus on what connected us rather than what separated us.”
Painting friends in mid-conversation, Alex Bradley Cohen hides as much as he reveals. [BV]
Yello is a great new newsletter from journalist Hunter Schwarz “about the culture, branding, and visual rhetoric of politics in America.” Here are his 101 picks for visual moments that defined politics in the 2010s, including Edel Rodriguez’s melting Trump. [MB]
Observed | December 04
How do you
bring an 18th-century Agateware teapot to life? Crafting it calls for an intricate process of moulding and layering clay materials, to mimic the agate stone. [BV]
Check out French artist Paul Sougy’s stunning mid-century scientific illustrations of plants, animals, and the human body. [BV]
Observed | November 29
London-based studio Dorothy has developed
a map of the United Kingdom using the titles of more than 1,400 pop songs. #CartographyRules [BV]
Observed | November 21
The icons of our popular culture
depicted as ancient ruins. (via
James I. Bowie) [BV]
Observed | November 14
“Other bad films fascinate because they define an area of heroic obsession, horrifically misapplied. The heroism and the misapplication are inseparable. Anyone can commit himself body and soul to a clearly formulated project of obvious importance or quality, but to throw your last dollar, your last scrap of energy, into something ill-conceived and absurd from the beginning: That takes a human being.”
Phil Christman on the reasons we watch bad movies. [BV]
Congratulations to
Côte d’Ivoire-based artist Joana Choumali on being the first photographer from the African continent to be awarded one of the world’s most prestigious photography prizes, the Prix Pictet. [BV]
Observed | November 13
We are very excited for
the next chapter of The Great Discontent and send all our congratulations to Hugh Weber and the TGD community: we look forward to new stories and new journeys. [BV]
Observed | November 12
Gorgeous
redesign of The Atlantic by Peter Mendelsund and Oliver Munday. [MB]
Observed | November 11
Out TODAY, Jessica Helfand’s
FACE: A VISUAL ODYSSEY from MIT Press. From Chuck Close, it’s “Everything you ever wanted to know about the face, plus lots you never knew you would want to know—and a few things you wish you didn’t. A must-read as well as a treasury of images.” [BV]
Observed | November 05
Flo Ngala’s photographs of
Figure Skating in Harlem celebrate young skaters of color. [BV]
Observed | November 04
#BreakingNews:
FACEBOOK goes all-caps (but the app will stay lowercase). (via
James I. Bowie) [BV]
Adrian Shaughnessy is a graphic designer and writer based in London. He is a senior tutor in Visual Communication at the Royal College of Art and a founding partner in Unit Editions a publishing company producing books on design and visual culture. Scratching the Surface, a collection of his journalism, has recently been published. 
