Observed | April 19
Spam musubi (a Hawaiian snack of canned meat served on rice and wrapped in nori) and other
unintended consequences of cultural exchange. [BV]
Despite their seeming environmental unfriendliness,
logos with factories and smokestacks have made a comeback in the US. [BV]
Observed | April 18
Post Typography created an
unconventional participatory campaign to support the Baltimore Museum of Art‘s conversation series on art, race, social justice, and imagining the future(s) we want. [BV]
Where do you stand on the “Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome Scale”?
Why your brain hates slowpokes. [BV]
Observed | April 17
An in-depth look at
how the Second World War warped the way United States mapped the world. [BV]
Observed | April 16
Joshua Dudley Greer logged 100,000 miles between 2011 and 2017, a period defined by the financial crisis and election, documenting what he saw along the U.S. Interstate Highway System. [BV]
Pete Buttigieg may be
the first candidate to anticipate (and provide for!) graphic design considerations. [JH]
Observed | April 11
The toxic disinformation of social media has rendered traditional forms of humor—
like satire—quaint and futile. [BV]
In a study of 26,000 people from over 100 countries, dark blue is the world’s most relaxing color, orange is the happiest, and pink is the sexiest. [BV]
Observed | April 10
Ever wondered
what a black hole looks like? Scientists reveal the first picture of a black hole. [BV]
Business Insider wrote about a Twitter thread where the Vignelli Center, Michael Bierut, Jesse Reed, and Alexandra Lange chatted about the difficulty of identifying Helvetica. [BV]
Observed | April 09
Nikil Saval in
The New Yorker on
how “good design” failed us. (via
James I. Bowie) [BV]
Observed | April 05
Some Friday fun: “A log flume winds its way around a watery course and slowly climbs the lift hill. Reaching the top, it then hurtles down the slope...Splash!”
But what if no one is riding? [BV]
The quest to acquire the oldest, most expensive book on the planet: unwrapping the most beautiful Gutenberg of them all. [BV]
Observed | April 04
“All submission to authority humiliates. All exercise of authority perverts.”
Roger Perry‘s photos of London graffiti in a time of recession, poor housing, and urban decay. [BV]
Patagonia will no longer emblazon its products with other companies’ logos
unless they commit to using their profits for the greater good. (via
James I. Bowie) [BV]
Observed | April 03
Lydian was created by designer and children’s book illustrator Warren Chappell in 1938, but didn’t really find its groove until after World War II when it was the font for Nancy Drew. [BV]
“When I visited for lunch, a few days ago, I found a tawny sea of tight jawlines and Goyard totes, women with blowouts as pristine as their natty Gucci loafers.”
A delicious review by Helen Rosner of “the one place in Hudson Yards that feels like New York”. [MB]
Observed | April 02
The
MITX DesignTech Summit is coming up next Wednesday, April 10th at the Innovation & Design Building in Boston. Join leaders from JPMorgan Chase, Automattic, Fidelity, athenahealth, Walmart & others as they discuss the business of design. (Check our twitter feed for a discount code.) [BV]
The New Yorker asked five designers, Na Kim, Alex Merto, Paul Sahre, Janet Hansen, and our very own Michael Bierut, to imagine
a cover for the Mueller report when it‘s released as a book. [BV]
Observed | April 01
A young paleontologist may have discovered a record of the most significant event in the history of life on Earth:
the day the dinosaurs died. [BV]
As we begin to judge the current 50 Covers entries,
this collection of 100 brilliant rejected book covers caught our attention. [BV]
Observed | March 28
Hilma af Klint is celebrated as an inventor of abstract art.
But she didn’t think of her work as abstract. [BV]
Observed | March 27
A new video about IDEO from
Dress Code features over 30+ interviews and is a look behind the curtain at
the global design firm, who for 40 years (and counting) has changed the way we think about design. [BV]
Observed | March 26
A stock photo library< created in response to much needed imagery to accompany stories about trans and non-binary people. [BV]
Observed | March 25
John Maeda’s newest design in tech report focuses less on proving design’s value and more on how design’s “seat at the table” has left designers wedged between corporate cultures, ever-changing skill sets, and constant self-reinvention. [BV]
Observed | March 20
From Tristram Shandy to black holes, from Coco Chanel to Johnny Cash, from Francisco Goya to Mark Rothko:
Ten ways to look at the color black. [BV]
With storage spaces filled with works that may never be shown,
some museums are rethinking the way they collect art, and at least one is ranking what it owns. [BV]
Observed | March 19
In response to last week’s Christcurch mosque shootings, Meena Kadri teamed up with her former Māori language teacher Te Ataahia Castorina to compile a set of Māori words + English translations celebrating unity. If you learn and share 10 Māori words this week,
make it these. [BV]
Observed | March 18
Journey back to a time when serifs were Antique, sans serifs were Grotesque, and
extra bold faces were Fat. [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. 
