Design of Business | Business of Design

Dana Arnett, Kevin Bethune
S10E12: Decolonizing Design
Decolonizing Design: A Cultural Justice Guidebook is a guidebook to the institutional transformation of design theory and practice by restoring the long-excluded cultures of Indigenous, Black, and People of Color communities.


Kaleena Sales, Omari Souza
S10E11.5: Minisode
Kaleena Sales and Omari Souza discuss past episodes featuring Kunal Kapoor and Dori Tunstall.


Dana Arnett, Kevin Bethune
S10E11: Dori Tunstall
Dr. Elizabeth “Dori” Tunstall is the Dean of the Faculty of Design at Ontario College of Art and Design.


Dana Arnett, Kevin Bethune
S10E10: Kunal Kapoor
Kunal Kapoor is chief executive officer of Morningstar.


Kaleena Sales, Omari Souza
S10E9.5: Minisode
Kaleena Sales and Omari Souza discuss past episodes featuring Norman Teague and Kim Erwin.


Dana Arnett, Kevin Bethune
S10E9: Kim Erwin
Kim Erwin is the Director of the Equitable Healthcare Lab and Associate Professor of Practice at IIT Institute of Design.


Dana Arnett, Kevin Bethune
S10E8: Norman Teague
Norman Teague is a designer and community builder who specializes in custom furniture design.


Kaleena Sales, Omari Souza
S10E7.5: Minisode
Kaleena Sales and Omari Souza discuss past episodes featuring Richard Ting and Marcia Lausen.


Dana Arnett, Kevin Bethune
S10E7: Marcia Lausen
Marcia Lausen is Director of the UIC School of Design and founder of the Chicago office of Studio/lab.


Dana Arnett, Kevin Bethune
S10E6: Richard Ting
Richard Ting is the Vice President of Design for Revenue at Twitter.


Kaleena Sales, Omari Souza
S10E5.5: Minisode
Kaleena Sales and Omari Souza discuss past episodes featuring Perrin Drumm, and Annie Atkins.


Dana Arnett, Kevin Bethune
S10E5: Annie Atkins
Annie Atkins is a graphic props designer for film and television.


Dana Arnett, Kevin Bethune
S10E4: Perrin Drumm
Perrin Drumm is a writer, editor, and head of publishing at A24.


Kaleena Sales, Omari Souza
S10E3.5: Minisode
On this week’s minisode, Kaleena and Omari unpack the idea of branding, being branded, and choosing your own brand.


Dana Arnett, Kevin Bethune
S10E3: Vernon Lockhart
Vernon Lockhart is the Executive Director of Project Osmosis, a Chicago based design education and mentoring initiative.


Kaleena Sales, Omari Souza
S10E2.5: Minisode
On this week’s minisode, Kaleena and Omari unpack the idea of design emancipation in their classrooms, and their practices.


Dana Arnett, Kevin Bethune
S10E2: Jane Saks
Jane Saks is the President and Artistic Director of Project&, and the co-Founder and co-Artistic Director of M2M: Monuments to Movements.


Kaleena Sales, Omari Souza
S10E1.5: Minisode
Kaleena Sales and Omari Souza discuss the value of bridging a diversity of broad experience to a design team.


Dana Arnett, Kevin Bethune
S10E1: Ernesto Quinteros
Redefining the boundaries between people, products, and patients: Ernesto Quinteros, the Chief Design Officer at Johnson & Johnson.


Kaleena Sales, Omari Souza
S10E0: Introducing Our Minisode Co-Hosts
Introducing The Design of Business | The Business of Design minisode co hosts, Kaleena Sales and Omari Souza.


Dana Arnett, Kevin Bethune
S10E0: Introducing Our New Co-Hosts
A conversation between two of our new co-hosts, Dana Arnett and Kevin Bethune.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S9E12: Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
Highlights of Season 9, and new hosts Dana Arnett and Kevin Bethune.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S9E11: Avery Willis Hoffman
Avery Willis Hoffman is a writer, director, producer, and curator. Hoffman recently joined Brown University as the inaugural artistic director of the Brown Arts Initiative.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S9E10: Quemuel Arroyo
Quemuel Arroyo is the first ever chief accessibility officer at the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S9E9: Deborah Willis
Deborah Willis is an artist, curator, and a professor at New York University. Her most recent book is The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S9E8: Jan Diehm
Jan Diehm is a journalist at Polygraph and The Pudding.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S9E7: Lotenna Enwonwu
Lotenna Enwonwu is the global executive creative director at Coursera.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S9E6: Elizabeth Hargrave
Elizabeth Hargrave is an American game designer whose games include Wingspan, Mariposas, and Tussie Mussie.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S9E5: Lucia Lucas
Lucia Lucas is a baritone who made her U.S. debut in 2019 at Tulsa Opera as Don Giovanni.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S9E4: Na Kim
Na Kim is an associate creative director at the book publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S9E3: Astra Taylor
Astra Taylor is an artist, activist, and founder of the Rolling Jubilee and the Debt Collective. Her latest book is Remake the World: Essays, Reflections, Rebellions.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S9E2: Melanie Keen
Melanie Keen is the director of Wellcome Collection.


Jessica Helfand
S9E01: Ellen Mirojnick
Emmy-award winner Ellen Mirojnick has designed film costumes since the 1980s and most recently is the lead costume designer for the Netflix series Bridgerton.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S8E12: Nikil Saval
Nikil Saval is a Pennsylvania state senator and the author of Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S8E11: Allissa Richardson
Allissa V. Richardson is a journalist and an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Southern California.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S8E10: Rosanne Somerson
Rosanne Somerson is president of the Rhode Island School of Design.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S8E9: Kat Vellos
Kat Vellos is a UX designer, facilitator, and connection coach.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S8E8: Nina Cooke John
Nina Cooke John is founder and principal of Studio Cooke John, and also teaches at Parsons School of Design.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S8E7: Maurice Woods
Maurice Woods is a principal designer at Microsoft and the founder and executive director of Inneract Project.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S8E6: Lisa Nakamura
Lisa Nakamura is the founding director of the Digital Studies Institute at the University of Michigan.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S8E5: Kelly Walters
Kelly Walters is the founder of the multidisciplinary studio Bright Polka Dot and an assistant professor of communications design at Parsons School of Design.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S8E4: Ari Melenciano
Ari Melenciano is an artist, creative technologist, educator, and the founder of Afrotectopia, a social institution fostering interdisciplinary innovation.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S8E3: Maxwell Anderson
Maxwell Anderson is the president of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation and Community Partnership.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S8E2: Deanna Van Buren
Deanna Van Buren is the co-founder of Designing Justice Designing Spaces, a nonprofit working to end mass incarceration by building an alternative infrastructure.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S8E1: Maurice Cherry
Maurice Cherry is the host of Revision Path and the principal and creative director at Lunch.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S7E12: Janelle Monáe
Janelle Monáe is a singer, songwriter, actor, and producer.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S7E11: Paola Antonelli
Paola Antonelli is senior curator of the department of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S7E10: Elizabeth Alexander
Elizabeth Alexander is president of the Mellon Foundation.



Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S7E09: Mark Bloomfield + Shaun Borstrock
Mark Bloomfield is a jewelry designer and the founder of Electrobloom. Shaun Borstrock is associate dean for business and innovation at the University of Hertfordshire.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S7E8: James Rhee
James Rhee is executive chair and CEO of the fashion brand Ashley Stewart as well as the founder and president of the investment firm FirePine Group.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S7E7: Daniella Zalcman
Daniella Zalcman is a documentary photographer and the founder of Women Photograph.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S7E6: Courtney Cogburn
Courtney Cogburn is a professor at the Columbia School of Social Work and the co-creator of 1000 Cut Journey.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S7E5: George Gendron + Patrick Mitchell
George Gendron is writer in residence at MIT’s integrated design and management program. Patrick Mitchell runs Modus Operandi Design.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S7E4: Vivianne Castillo
Vivianne Castillo is senior design researcher at Salesforce.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S7E3: Sara Hendren
Sarah Hendren is an artist, design researcher, and professor at the Olin College of Engineering.


Jessica Helfand + Ellen McGirt
S7E2: Gene Lee
Gene Lee is senior vice president of customer experience and design at Mailchimp.


Jessica Helfand, Ellen McGirt
S7E1: Caroline Wanga
Caroline Wanga is chief culture, diversity, and inclusion officer and vice president of human resources at Target.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
From the Archive: Georgia Lupi
Giorgia Lupi is a partner in the design firm Pentagram and an artist whose data-driven work is at MOMA in New York.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
From the Archive: Forest Young
Forest Young is head of design and a global principal at the branding consultancy Wolff Olins who recently completed the Uber redesign.


Michael Bierut, Jessica Helfand
From the Archive: Lee Moreau
Lee Moreau is Vice President of Design at EPAM Continuum, a global design and innovation consultancy based in Boston. He is also a visiting lecturer at MIT where he teaches design strategy and innovation.


Michael Bierut
S6E12: Todd Bracher
Todd Bracher is founder and creative director of Todd Bracher Studio.


Michael Bierut
S6E11: Valerie Casey
Valerie Casey is head of design at Walmart.


Michael Bierut
S6E10: Bon Ku
Dr. Bon Ku is assistant dean for health and design at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.


Michael Bierut
S6E9: Isolde Brielmaier
Isolde Brielmaier is the executive director of arts culture and community at Westfield World Trade Center.


Michael Bierut
S6E8: Mauro Porcini
Mauro Porcini is chief design officer at PepsiCo


Michael Bierut
S6E7: Valla Vakili
Valla Vakili is head of Citi Ventures Studio, an incubator for financial services.


Michael Bierut
S6E6: Archie Lee Coates IV
Archie Lee Coates IV is a founder of multidisciplinary creative studio Playlab, Inc., and executive director of Friends of +POOL.


Michael Bierut
S6E5: Kerby Jean-Raymond
Kerby Jean Raymond is the founder and CEO of the fashion label Pyer Moss.


Michael Bierut
S6E4: Reneé Seward & Chester Jenkins
Reneé Seward teaches communication design at the University of Cincinnati and is the founder of See Word Reading. Chester Jenkins is a partner in Constellation, which creates new typefaces, and Village, a coop that publishes them.


Michael Bierut
S6E3: Cindy Chastain
Cindy Chastain is senior vice president of customer experience and design at Mastercard.


Michael Bierut
S6E2: Billie Tsien
Billie Tsien is the co-founder of Tod Williams Billie Tsien architects, which works on buildings for museums, universities, and the Obama Presidential Center.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S6E1: Errol Morris
Errol Morris is a filmmaker whose documentaries include Gates of Heaven, The Thin Blue Line, and American Dharma.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S5E12: Dmitri Siegel
Dmitri Siegel is vice president of global brand at Sonos.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S5E11: Renata Souza
Renata Souza Luque is the creator of Thomy, an insulin kit for children with Type 1 diabetes.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S5E10: Eddie Opara
Eddie Opara is a multidisciplinary designer and a partner at the design firm Pentagram.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S5E9: Manuel Lima
Manuel Lima is a UX design manager at Google and the founder of the website Visual Complexity.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S5E8: Todd Waterbury
Todd Waterbury is the chief creative officer of Target.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S5E7: Susannah Drake
Susannah Drake is the founder of DLANDstudio, a landscape architecture and urban design firm.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S5E6: Lorna Solis
Lorna Solis is the founder and CEO of Blue Rose Compass, a nonprofit that helps gifted refugees develop their potential.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S5E5: Forest Young
Forest Young is head of design and a global principal at the branding consultancy Wolff Olins.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S5E4: Mariana Amatullo
Mariana Amatullo teaches strategic design and management at Parsons School of Design at The New School.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S5E3: Ellen Lupton
Ellen Lupton is the curator of contemporary design at Cooper Hewitt, the Smithsonian Design Museum.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S5E2: Jon Iwata
Jon Iwata is executive in residence at the Yale School of Management and a senior advisor to IBM.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S5E1: Lisa Smith
Lisa Smith is vice president of brand design at Chobani.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
From the Archive: Ashleigh Axios
When Ashleigh Axios joined the White House’s Office of Digital Strategy in 2012 she wasn’t sure how she would fit in.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
From the Archive: Leslie Koch
A conversation with Leslie Koch, who revitalized Governor’s Island, an abandoned military post in New York Harbor into a public park.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
From the Archive: Deborah Berke
Deborah Berke is the founding partner of Deborah Berke Partners, designer of 21c Museum Hotels, and the Dean of the Yale School of Architecture.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
From the Archive: Audrey Gelman and Emily Oberman
Audrey Gelman is co-founder and CEO of The Wing, a social club and co-working space for women. Pentagram partner Emily Oberman worked on the brand identity.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
From the Archive: Neri Oxman
Neri Oxman leads the Mediated Matter research group at the MIT Media Lab. She treats art, science, and engineering as part of design.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
From the Archive: Danny Meyer and Paula Scher
Danny Meyer is the founder of Shake Shack. Paula Scher designed its graphic identity.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S4E12: Jessica Dimmock
Jessica Dimmock is a photographer and filmmaker. Her latest project is the Netflix documentary series Flint Town.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S4E11: Andrew Essex
Andrew Essex is the author of “The End of Advertising: Why It Had to Die, and the Creative Resurrection to Come.”


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S4E10: Abbott Miller
Abbott Miller is a partner in the design firm Pentagram.


Michael Bierut, Jessica Helfand
S4E9: Karin Fong
Karin Fong is a founding member of Imaginary Forces, a creative company specializing in visual storytelling and brand strategy.


Michael Bierut, Jessica Helfand
S4E8: Somi Kim
Somi Kim is senior director of healthcare solutions at Johnson & Johnson Design.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S4E7: Lisa Strausfeld
Lisa Strausfeld is an information architect and data visualisation pioneer. Her studio is InformationArt.


Michael Bierut, Jessica Helfand
S4E6: Margaret Gould Stewart
Margaret Gould Stewart is vice president of product design at Facebook.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S4E5: Heather McIntosh Cassano
Heather McIntosh Cassano is director of user experience at Google, leading a team focused on workplace apps.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S4E4: Ben Watson
Ben Watson is the chief creative officer of Herman Miller, the furniture and workspace design company.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S4E3: Arthur Cohen
Arthur Cohen is CEO and co-founder of LaPlaca Cohen, a strategy, design, and marketing firm for the cultural world.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S4E2: Kevin Bethune
Kevin Bethune is vice president of Strategic Design at BCG Digital Ventures.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S4E1: Stella Bugbee
Stella Bugbee is the editor in chief and president of New York Magazine’s The Cut.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S3E12: Vishaan Chakrabarti
Vishaan Chakrabarti is the founder of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism and the author of A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for Urban America.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S3E11: Melissa Harris
Melissa Harris is editor at large of the Aperture Foundation and the author of A Wild Life: A Visual Biography of Photographer Michael Nichols.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S3E10: Randy Hunt
Randy Hunt is the head of design at Artsy and the former VP of Design at Etsy.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S3E9: Natasha Jen
Natasha Jen is a partner in the design firm Pentagram.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S3E8: Ravi Naidoo
Ravi Naidoo is the founder of Interactive Africa as well as Design Indaba, an annual conference in Cape Town.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S3E7: Liz Danzico
Liz Danzico is creative director for NPR, where she guides both visual design and user experience.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S3E6: Scott Frankel + David Korins
Scott Frankel composes musicals including Grey Gardens and War Paint. David Korins designed the sets for War Paint, Hamilton, and many other productions.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S3E5: John Maeda
John Maeda is global head of computational design and inclusion at Automattic and the author of the annual Design in Tech report.


Michael Bierut, Jessica Helfand
S3E4: Timothy Geithner
Timothy Geithner was Secretary of the Treasury from 2009 to 2013. He chairs the Program on Financial Stability at the Yale School of Management.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S3E3: Lucienne Roberts
Lucienne Roberts runs the studio LucienneRoberts+ and the publisher GraphicDesign+.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S3E2: Claire Weisz
Claire Weisz is is the principal-in-charge of WXY, an architecture and design practice focused on innovative approaches to public space, structures, and cities.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S3E1: Giorgia Lupi
Giorgia Lupi is the co-founder and design director of Accurat, a data-driven studio, and an artist whose work is at MoMA.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S2E12: Dana Arnett + Patrick Palmer
Dana Arnett is a vice chairman and a founding partner of VSA Partners, a branding and marketing company based in Chicago. Patrick Palmer leads the strategy practice at VSA.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S2E11: Khoi Vinh
Khoi Vinh is a principal designer at Adobe.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S2E10: Robert Brunner
Robert Brunner is a founder of Ammunition, a design firm based in San Francisco. He has designed products from the Apple PowerBook to Beats by Dre headphones.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S2E9: Ashleigh Axios
Ashleigh Axios is the design exponent at Automattic and a former creative director for the White House’s Office of Digital Strategy.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S2E8: Teddy Blanks
Teddy Blanks is a co-founder of CHIPS, a Brooklyn-based design studio, who specializes in film titles.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S2E7: Grace Jun
Grace Jun is the executive director of Open Style Lab, a nonprofit that aims to make fashion accessible to people with disabilities.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S2E6: Michael Rock
Michael Rock is founding partner and creative director of 2x4, a global design consultancy. He has worked with brands including Nike, Prada, Target, and Kanye West.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S2E5: David Rockwell
David Rockwell is the founder and president of the architecture and design firm the Rockwell Group and a theatrical set designer.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S2E4: Lee Moreau
Lee Moreau is a principal at Continuum, a global innovation design firm.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S2E3: Bobby C Martin Jr
Bobby C. Martin, Jr., is a founding partner of the agency OCD | The Original Champions of Design.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S2E2: Neri Oxman
Neri Oxman leads the Mediated Matter research group at the MIT Media Lab.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S2E1: Audrey Gelman and Emily Oberman
Audrey Gelman is co-founder and CEO of The Wing, a social club and co-working space for women. Pentagram partner Emily Oberman worked on the brand identity.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S1E12: Teddy Goff
Teddy Goff was the digital director for Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection effort and an adviser to Hillary Clinton in 2016.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S1E11: Steve Duenes
Steve Duenes is an Assistant Editor at The New York Times who oversees a team of visual journalists.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S1E10: Danny Meyer and Paula Scher
Danny Meyer is the founder of Shake Shack. Paula Scher designed its graphic identity.


Michale Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S1E9: Jay Parkinson
Dr. Jay Parkinson is the founder of Sherpaa, an online medical practice.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S1E8: Leslie Koch
Leslie Koch was the president and CEO of the Trust for Governors Island.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S1E7: Susan Sellers + Cynthia Round
Susan Sellers was creative director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Cynthia Round was its senior vice president of marketing and external relations.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S1E6: Douglas Powell
Douglas Powell is a Distinguished Designer at IBM. He directs a global effort to bring human-centered design to IBM.


Michael Bierut, Jessica Helfand
S1E5: Bruce Cohen
Bruce Cohen is an Oscar-winning film producer and president of the board of directors of the American Foundation for Equal Rights


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S1E4: Barry Nalebuff
Barry Nalebuff teaches at the Yale School of Management. His specialty is game theory and its application to business strategy.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S1E3: Deborah Berke
Deborah Berke is the founding partner of Deborah Berke Partners, the architect of the 21c Museum Hotels, and the Dean of the Yale School of Architecture.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S1E2: Molly Barton and Julian Yap
Molly Barton and Julian Yap are cofounders of Serial Box Publishing, which develops original episodic fiction.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S1E1: John Bielenberg
John Bielenberg is a designer, entrepreneur and imaginative advocate for a better world.


Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand
S1E0: Trailer
A quick preview of Season 1, with Michael Bierut, Jessica Helfand, and a few of their guests.



Observed


Cheryl Holmes's next book documents the history of the question she has been asking for decades—where are the Black designers?— along with related questions that are urgent to the design profession: where did they originate, where have they been, and why haven't they been represented in design histories and canons? With a foreword by Crystal Williams, President of Rhode Island School of Design, HERE: Where the Black Designers Are will be published next fall by Princeton Architectural Press.

Can ballot design be deemed unconstitutional? More on the phenomenon known as "Ballot Siberia," where un-bracketed candidates often find themselves disadvantaged by being relegated to the end of the ballot.

Designing the Modern World—Lucy Johnston's new monograph celebrating the extraordinary range of British industrial designer (and Pentagram co-founder) Sir Kenneth Grange—is just out from our friends at Thames&Hudson. More here.

Good news to start your week: design jobs are in demand!

An interview with DB | BD Minisode cohost and The State of Black Design founder Omari Souza about his conference,  and another about his new book. (And a delightful conversation between Souza and Revision Path host Maurice Cherry here.) 

What happens when you let everyone have a hand in the way things should look and feel and perform—including the kids? An inspiring story about one school’s inclusive design efforts

Graphic designer Fred Troller forged a Swiss modernist path through corporate America in a career that spanned five decades. The Dutch-born, Troller—whose clients included, among others, IBM, Faber Castell, Hoffmann LaRoche, Champion International, and the New York Zoological Society—was also an educator, artist, and sculptor. Want more? Help our friends at Volume raise the funds they both need and deserve by supporting the publication of a Troller monograph here.

The Independence Institute is less a think tank than an action tank—and part of that action means rethinking how the framing of the US Constitution might benefit from some closer observation. In order to ensure election integrity for the foreseeable future, they propose a constitutional amendment restoring and reinforcing the Constitution’s original protections.

Design! Fintech! Discuss amongst yourselves!

The art (and design) of “traffic calming” is like language: it’s best when it is extremely clear and concise, eliminating the need for extra thinking on the receiving end. How bollards, arrows, and other design interventions on the street promote public safety for everyone. (If you really want to go down the design-and-traffic rabbit hole with us here, read about how speculative scenario mapping benefits from something called “digital twins”.)

Opening this week and running through next fall at Poster House in New York, a career retrospective for Dawn Baillie, whose posters for Silence of the Lambs, Little Miss Sunshine, and Dirty Dancing, among countless others, have helped shape our experience of cinema. In a field long-dominated by men, Bailie's posters span some thirty-five years, an achievement in itself. (The New York Times reviews it here.)

Can't make it to Austin for SXSW this year? In one discussion, a selection of designers, policymakers, scientists, and engineers sought identify creative solutions to bigger challenges. (The “design track” ends today, but you can catch up with all the highlights here.)

Should there be an Oscar for main title design?

Design contributes hugely to how we spend (okay, waste) time online. But does that mean that screen addiction is a moral imperative for designers? Liz Gorny weighs in, and Brazillian designer Lara Mendonça (who, and we love this, also self-identifies as a philosopher) shares some of her own pithy observations.

Oscar nominees, one poster at a time.

Ellen Mirojnick—the costume designer behind Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction, and Oppenheimer, for which she is 2024 Oscar nominee—shares some career highlights from forty years in film. (Bonus content: we kicked off Season Nine of The Design of Business  | The Business of Design with this conversation.)

Erleen Hatfield, of The Hatfield Group, is the engineer behind many innovative buildings, including the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home to the Atlanta Falcons, whose roof opens like a camera aperture to reveal the sky. Now, she's also one of the newly-minted AIA fellows, an honor awarded to architects—only 3% of their 98,000+ AIA members—who have made significant contributions to the profession.  

Anamorph, a new filmmaking and technology company co-founded by filmmaker Gary Hustwit (of Helvetica fame) and digital artist Brendan Dawes, wants to reshape the cinematic experience with a proprietary generative technology that can create films that are different every time they’re shown.

Viewers seem more concerned with Biden's rounded smartphone than with his policies. (We're not discussing the age of the man, here—just his phone!)

Claiming he is “not very good at design,” Riken Yamamoto, a 78-year old Japanese architect, wins the coveted Pritzger Prize. Notes the jury: "Yamamoto’s architecture serves both as background and foreground to everyday life, blurring boundaries between its public and private dimensions, and multiplying opportunities for people to meet spontaneously”.

Citizen outcry over Southwest's new cabin design—and in particular, it's new-and-improved-seats—may not be likely to  result in changes any time soon, but the comments (Ozempic seats!) are highly entertaining. (“Is there an option to just stand?”)

More than 50 years ago, a small group of design educators tried to decolonize design in Africa, hoping to teach African designers how to use research and design for their people and their nations by leveraging their own indigenous knowledge and local customs. While their pioneering effort was suppressed after a few short years by the colonial authorities, their approach to teaching design still resonates today: consider the story of François-X. N.I. Nsenga, an indigenous African designer who grew up in Belgian Rwanda and studied in British Kenya at Africa's first university-based design program. For more on the cultural history, design philosphy, and the "Europeanisation" of colonial Africa, you'll find a conversation with Nsenga in Gjoko Muratovski's book, Research for Designers: A Guide to Methods and Practice

At turns dystopian and delightful, the future of AI-based digital assistants seem poised to communicate through the “emotion and information display” of new constellations of hardware. (Including … orbs!) Like concept cars, they're not on the market just yet, but developmental efforts at more than a few telecoms suggest they're clearly on the horizon. More here.

Jha D Amazi, a principal and the director of the Public Memory and Memorials Lab for MASS (Model of Architecture Serving Society) Design Group, examines how spatializing memory can spark future collective action and provide a more accurate and diverse portrayal of our nation's complicated past. She gave this year’s annual Richard Saivetz ’69 Memorial Architectural Lecture at Brandeis last month, entitled, “Spatializing Memory”.

Self-proclaimed “geriatric starlet” and style icon Iris Apfel has died. She was 102.

“You know, you’ve got to try to sneak in a little bit of humanity,” observes Steve Matteson, the designer behind Aptos—Microsoft's new “default” font. “I did that by adding a little swing to the R and the double stacked g." Adds Jon Friedman, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for design: “It’s both quirky and creates a more natural feel that brings in some of the serif font ‘je ne sais quoi’ to it”. Resistant to change (or simply longing for Calibri), font geeks are not having it. Fun fact? Aptos was originally called Bierstadt. You may well imagine, as we did, that this was a nod to the 19th century German-American landscape painter, Albert Bierstadt—but the actual translation is “Beer City”. 

In Dallas, the Better Block Foundation is sponsoring a design contest called Creating Connections, aimed at addressing the growing epidemic of loneliness by exploring the impact of design on how people connect with others.

Good design is invisible, but bad design is unignorable. Elliot Vredenburg, Associate Creative Director at Mother Design, bares it all.

Arab design is a story of globalism, evidenced through collaborations with the Arab diaspora living, working, and creating abroad, and with the expatriate community in the Middle East and North Africa. More on the highlights (and insights) from Doha Design 2024 here.

Organizations that embrace diversity tend to foster innovation, challenge ingrained thought patterns, and enhance financial performance. Its true benefits emerge when leaders and employees cultivate a sense of inclusion. How architecture is reckoning with the cultural and economic challenges of—and demands for—a more inclusive workforce.



Jobs | March 18