Observed | February 20
The Sunset Strip occupies a short stretch of Sunset Boulevard, but its reputation as a stomping ground of gangsters, glamour girls, rock stars and hell-raisers has held an oversized fascination for decades. Curbed LA dives deep.
Part One.
Part Two. [BV]
Should historic logos be protected in the same way as historic buildings? (via
James I. Bowie) [BV]
Observed | February 19
My new favourite part of Twitter is Josh Lipnik’s tours of the modern architecture of the US midwest.
Here he looks at the modern architecture of Columbus, Ohio—houses, schools, churches, banks, and even a cool Space Age horse racing track. [MB]
The authoritative, totally not subjective, incontrovertibly definitive and 100% correct L.A. Times
Fast Food French Fry Rankings. [BV]
Observed | February 14
Welcome to 2019. If you value your privacy,
don’t get your Valentine an internet-connected sex toy. [BV]
Observed | February 13
Places Journal’s ongoing series “Future Archive” republishes significant 20th-century texts introduced by a prominent scholar. This installment features
J.B. Jackson’s 1976 essay on the American garage from
Landscape. [BV]
Can multigenerational home-sharing solve LA’s affordability crisis? Alissa Walker explores what it might mean to
age in place in LA. [BV]
Observed | February 12
Cubicles are back, and we have open plan offices to thank. [BV]
As
emoji become more detailed in their design, they become less useful for communication. (via
James I. Bowie) [BV]
Observed | February 11
#Longread:
The Five Families of Feces—the porta-potty business is as dirty as you’d think. [BV]
The world’s watersheds,
mapped in gorgeous detail by Hungarian cartographer Robert Szucs. [BV]
Photography writes with light,
but not everything wants to be seen. [JH]
Observed | February 07
Are we heading towards extreme overpopulation or a decline in humans?
Questioning the UN population model. [BV]
Observed | February 06
What if everything you knew about
the history of pizza in America was false? [BV]
A special class of vivid, textural words defy linguistic theory: could ‘
ideophones’ unlock the secrets of humans’ first utterances? [BV]
Social media has spawned a generation of un-Strunk-and-White-ified people who appear to believe that punctuation is optional, that grammar is for the elderly, and that ending a sentence with a period is a deliberate act of aggression.
The guardian of grammar, Benjamin Dreyer, wants that to change. [BV]
Observed | February 05
Innovative interaction design helps Chinese families stay emotionally connected through the Chinese New Year while being geographically scattered. [BV]
Observed | February 04
Was architecture better under socialism? [BV]
Ganbreeder is an experiment using breeding and sharing to explore complex visual spaces. Or, Ganbreeder is a crazy app where you can merge things like a parakeet with a bubble. 17024009+ images and counting. [BV]
Observed | January 31
Saturday Night Live’s cue cards are still created by hand. And they pay attention to whitespace to make sure the cards are readable from a distance! [BV]
In 2014, microbiologists began
a 500-year-long science experiment assuming that science—or some version of it—will still exist in 2514. [BV]
Observed | January 30
The World’s Writing Systems allows you to interact with the 292 currently-known writing systems as they are encoded in the Unicode standard. [BV]
A growing crowd-sourced
gallery of crazy mass transit fabric patterns. [BV]
Observed | January 29
For six amazing years—from 2006 to 2012—
I led the design advisory group on the Citizen‘s Stamp Advisory Committee, with a terrific group of people from all across the country. What a delight to talk about it! [JH]
The 52-year history of the Yale Building project: pushing architecture students out of their studios and into communities they can positively affect. (
Support The Yale Herald‘s Kickstarter!) [BV]
Emily Gosling on
the magical, imperfect grids of Anni Albers. [MB]
Observed | January 28
The Letterform Archive opened it’s doors in 2015. In 2019 they are opening their virtual doors to
a curated collection of over 50,000 items related to lettering, typography, calligraphy, and graphic design, spanning thousands of years of history. [BV]
How does one judge the historic 50 Books | 50 Covers competition? Our jury chair, and Design Observer co-founder, Jessica Helfand talks to The Monocle Weekly. [BV]
Observed | January 24
A talk with Olivier Kugler about his most recent book, “Escaping Wars and Waves: Encounters With Syrian Refugees”: a first hand record of the tragic souls who have been forced to leave their homeland and the disappointments, frustrations, and deprivations they’ve experienced as they attempt to make new lives. [BV]
Who owns collusion? In a case that’s a “Russian nesting doll of stupidity,” EFF’s Daniel Nazer
defends against an unlikely trademark claim. [MB]
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. 
