Observed | July 29
Conceptual magazine covers, and why they matter. [JH]
Observed | July 22
Deem is a design journal established upon the notion that design is fundamentally a shared experience that adds value to communities. [JH]
Fast Company shares its
favorite design books of summer. [JH]
Design and surrealism, an exhibition at the London Design Museum. [JH]
Claes Oldenberg, the Swedish-born American Pop artist known for his monumental sculptures of everyday objects, has died. He was 93. [JH]
Manuhuia Barcham, Managing Director, Archetekt, will be the next head of the AIGA Board of Directors. [JH]
Observed | July 15
Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About (Design And) Sex But Were Afraid To Ask. [JH]
“He’s even branched out into graphic design himself, with a little help from Naoto Fukasawa, in a bizarre collaboration that has yet to see the light of day.” Kanye West does design. (And doesn’t.) [JH]
Sreoshy Banerjea has been appointed by Mayor Eric Adams as the next Executive Director of the New York City Public Design Commission. [JH]
“He’s not just a designer,” Steve Jobs once said of
Jonathan Ive, then-design director at Apple. “He has more operational power than anyone at Apple, except me.” [JH]
Observed | July 08
The American designer
Arnold Skolnick who—Inspired by Matisse’s cutouts—created the iconic Woodstock poster in 1969, has died. He was 85. [JH]
Where graphic design meets architecture:
Thonik’s new studio, in Amsterdam. [JH]
Marcus Fairs, the founder and editor-in-chief of Dezeen, has died. The well-known design journalist was 54. [JH]
2022 SEGD Award winners announced. [JH]
Observed | June 17
Molly Young reviews Alexandra Lange’s new book,
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall. (
Read an excerpt here.) [JH]
Can you quantify creativity? [JH]
Zimbabwean born designer, visual artist, and educator
Nontsikelelo Mutiti has been appointed the next Director of Graduate Studies in Graphic Design at Yale School of Art. [JH]
Observed | June 03
A
critique of poster design goes viral. [JH]
Colin Forbes—who, with Alan Fletcher, Theo Crosby, Mervyn Kurlansky and Kenneth Grange co-founded the international design firm, Pentagram, in the early 1970s—has died at 94. [JH]
Are school shootings a design problem? Texas Senator Ted Cruz thinks so. [JH]]
In the United States, there are
five requirements for design patentability. Do you know what they are? [JH]
Italian design legend
Riccardo Falcinelli on design philosophy—and reality. [JH]
Read It And Weep Department: Just when you thought a more diverse cast of characters (think women and people of color, for starters) might actually be on their way to getting some long-overdue airtime, Austrian brothers Jono and Benji Bergmann release a film on ...
Bruce Mau! [JH]
Observed | April 29
Creatives for Ukraine, an open platform with over one thousand digital artworks submitted showing solidarity with Ukraine. [BV]
Trained as an Industrial designer at Notre Dame, Michigan state senator
Mallory McMorrow takes on the GOP. [JH]
Yup. [JH]
Designers! They’re just like us! “Grey’s friend Jamie Lee Curtis helped design the cover of
Out of the Corner, using what she described in a phone interview as
“D.I.Y. photoshop phone app skills.” [JH]
Observed | April 26
Award-winning American artist and illustrator, Marshall Arisman, has died at 83.
Steve Heller’s tribute is here. [JH]
Observed | April 08
Kevin Lippert, the founder of Princeton Architectural Press, has died after a long battle with cancer. He was 63. [JH]
Forbes offers “
graphic design on a budget” advise—in the name of leadership. [JH]
The saga to
redesign Rhode Island’s license plate continues, with design educators weighing in. [JH]
An early Easter gift for a grateful librarian:
Charles Darwin’s notebooks, long missing, mysteriously returned! (Via Jen Renninger) [JH]
Educator, artist, activist and civil rights era photographer
Doris Derby has died. She was 82. [JH]
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. 
