Observed | September 17
From Aunt Jemima to AI, How Racism Creeps Into Design: an
insightful video from Bloomberg Equality. [JH]
The
40 winners of this year’s Posterheroes Becoming e-Quals competition have been announced. Congrats to all! [BV]
German artist Max Hattler finds inspiration in the immense size, muted colors, and relentless repetition of
the facades of Hong Kong’s apartment high-rises. [BV]
Swatch Bharat—online collections of Indian native aesthetics, created to preserve artifacts disappearing due to globalization—has completed their
eighth collection. Get inspired![BV]
Observed | September 10
Rachel Berger’s
Shooter Box—an exhibition protesting the United States military’s use of Microsoft Xbox controllers as battle equipment—now on view at California College of the Arts. [JH]
Pantone No. 1837, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and a
conspiracy theory about art and commerce. [JH]
Designing a better airport. [JH]
Revisiting a seminal
guerilla signage project, twenty years later. [JH]
Observed | September 03
Everyone’s a (design) critic! The internet goes wild—not in a good way—for the
cover art “design” for Drake’s new album. [JH]
A new graphic novel on censorship—from MITPress—gathers insights and highlights from
a profession under attack. [JH]
Rebranding Chernobyl with a logo that decays over time. (Via Michael Bierut.) [JH]
Today we chase after information, without gaining knowledge. We take note of everything, without gaining insight. We communicate constantly, without participating in a community... This is
how information develops a lifeform: inexistent and impermanent. [JH]
Observed | August 27
A spectacularly researched—and meticulously produced—
history of design and visual culture in Louisiana. (Via Nancy Sharon Collins.)
[JH]
Alan Heller, who collaborated with Mario Bellini, Massimo and Lella Vignelli, and others to produce memorable objects in plastic, dies at 81. [JH]
Originally located in Marshall Field’s unused 1905 South Prairie Avenue mansion, The New Bauhaus school opened its doors on October 18, 1937. Bauhäusler László Moholy-Nagy, director, began to shape the original Bauhaus curriculum to suit his purposes. Gone were the craft-based distinctions that helped enforce gendered segregation and discrimination in the German workshops.
An in-depth look at the founding of American Bauhaus. [BV]
Observed | August 20
Preserving
Black historical resorts is a radical act: Amid the violent segregation of the Jim Crow era, leaning into Black joy, leisure, and recreation was a form of quiet radical resistance. [BV]
Our favorite water bottle designers have debuted their
newest product, a sleek, steel vessel for all your portable beverage needs. [BV]
Populism—fascism—and design:
Derek Hill explains. (Via Mike Errico.) [JH]
Punishment for ...
a logo? [JH]
Data visualization in three parts: Mars rover, seabed geochemistry, and drought and climate change. [BV]
How
the ice cream truck made summer cool. [BV]
