You need an observation practice

In all my Design Juice interviews, curiosity keeps coming up. Of course, it’s not completely surprising, considering curiosity is a designer’s natural inclination. 

But these designers have pointed me to (and in some cases, told me outright) the same insight over and over: if you want to pursue truth, meet your client’s needs, have a portfolio that stands out, or meet a current cultural or political moment, you have to turn personal curiosity into an intentional observation practice.

I asked Jennifer Jerde, whose San Francisco-based studio, Elixir Design, has been around for 34 years, if she has an observation practice. “We do,” she said, after pondering for a moment. “I would never refer to it that way. We listen like crazy. We’re observing what lives inside clients’ minds and hearts.”

Her studio has sustained itself through its commitment to finding, as she calls it, “whatever’s really the truth” about a client. This means she’s serious about relationships and, as a result, keen observation.

For Ira Blossom, who founded the games-only analog newspaper, Sunday Club, observation is “the number one thing.” Blossom is a senior UX research manager at Google; after years of observing and documenting people using technology, he’s learned that customers want real time away from it. Sunday Club, which had a launch so overwhelmingly successful that even Blossom’s wife packaged over 50,000 copies herself, is a direct result of that insight. 

His advice: “don’t start solution-forward. Always start with understanding the problem and the real underlying thing that people are trying to solve.”

The kind of observation that brings good design work can, and actually often does, happen outside of the context of design. 

Graphic designer, art director, and mixed media artist Guillermo Flores Pacheco, whose distinctive style has landed him clients like Adobe, Apple, Nike, Sephora, and Marc Jacobs, says his style took years to refine. His artistic process is an observation practice in disguise. “I love to sit down in a coffee shop for hours and just watch everything. I’m doing some kind of research in my mind,” he says. “When someone asks me to create something, I directly go straight to those kinds of activities.”

Early on in his 40-year-long career, John Ball realized he needed to get serious about deep observation. 

He found himself in rooms, talking to clients about “big things,” and struck by the idea that he was woefully underprepared. “I had no idea how to be in that conversation,” he recounted. “I quickly realized, do I need to read the Wall Street Journal? Do I need to embrace what’s happening in the client’s world a little bit more, and step out of the design bubble?” Filling in the gaps with a deliberate information and experience diet outside the design field helped him become a more effective and empathetic thought partner. 

For any intentional practice to take root, it must be repeated — and typically recorded — which takes discipline, patience, and more than a little faith. An observation practice, as varied as its practitioner, builds on what designers understand but can easily forget: the world outside your immediate experience often holds the keys to better work.

But it will only work if it’s intentional.

From John Ball: “As designers, we have many superpowers. Curiosity. A keen eye for the details. Taking in information and organizing it. Always questioning and looking for a better solution. These are the things we can lean into in pursuit of truth, whether for ourselves, our clients, or our society. Unfortunately, not everyone shares that same curiosity.”

Do you want more Design Juice? If so, send me your ideas: who would you like to hear from? What questions would you ask?

Rachel Paese
Deputy Editor
Rachel@designobserver.com
Substack
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This edition of The Observatory was edited by Ellen McGirt.

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Podcasts

Design of Business | Business of Design

DB|BD is back!

This season we are thinking about radical collaboration. For the second year in a row, Design Observer is publishing some exclusive conversations from the Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Summit.

In July, DBBD host Ellen McGirt interviewed eight thoughtful, important, and provocative leaders who are thinking deeply about AI, sustainability, and the role of business in a chaotic world.

Two new episodes are out! Catch AI is the Greatest Civil Rights Issue of Our Time With Chris Hyams and Dean Erika James Says a Prepared Leader is a Disciplined One.

Draw the Line

Episode one of Draw the Line out now.

The Supreme Court case Louisiana v. Callais gutted the Voting Rights Act and rewrote the rules of American democracy. Design Observer’s brand new audio documentary, Draw the Line, is telling the inside story of Louisiana’s fight over power, maps, and who gets left off them.

Every district line is a design decision — and every decision is about who gets power.

Observed

Plot twist: the Plague is back.

There will be some casualties, and that’s okay, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tells Politico. Bad things may happen with AI in the hands of mere mortals, but that’s a small price to pay.

Can ChatGPT help you prepare for the midterm elections? As busy voters increasingly use LLMs to research their ballots, experts are making their concerned faces. “It might select some things that would reinforce and persuade you even more towards the way that you were leaning already,” says Rafael Batista, a research fellow who studies how AI shapes the way people experience the world. “So you leave more confident, without necessarily learning more about the world.”

Midcentury modern design has gone from cool to cringey, says the WSJ. (Spoiler alert: it’s the millennials’ fault.)

Save the date: Artist Jeff Koons is selling a treasure trove of art from his private collection — from the Dutch Golden Age to Picasso — at Christie’s this November. It is expected to fetch over $100 million. “It is a vision,” Alex Rotter, Christie’s global president, said of the collection. “It’s not pedestrian.” La de da.

Apple has a new chief designer, kinda. New CEO John Ternus is taking a “hands-on” role in design as part of his new remit. All design functions will report into him, in sharp contrast to Tim Cook, who evidently only checked in monthly, according to Bloomberg.

Come to find out, Renoir was kind of an asshole. With a new show, “Renoir and Love,” debuting at the National Gallery in London, art critic Waldemar Januszczak, notes the exhibit is an interesting choice. “It’s brave because Renoir can almost be considered a cancelled artist these days,” he says. “His sexual history causes disquiet. His politics are frowned on. His paintings of women…are habitually accused of misogyny.”

Or maybe Renoir Just Sucks At Painting?

Buildings and construction account for around 37% of global CO₂ emissions and nearly half of material extraction, according to the UN’s 2025-2026 Global Status Report. Ming Chen, an architectural designer at AUX Architecture in Los Angeles, uses research and professional practice to create architectural systems that understand “assembly, reuse, and material afterlives.”

Read more at designobserver.com or in your Substack feed.

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End marks

It’s officially spooky season, which means it’s time to revisit Design Observer’s editorial takeover: The Design of Horror | The Horror of Design. Dive into the history of horror imagery in rap music, a conversation with the production designer for Hereditary, or an exploration of the rise of “beauty horror.”

This is the web version of The Observatory, our weekly dispatch from the editors and contributors at Design Observer. Want it in your inbox? Sign up here. While you’re at it, come say hi on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, or TikTok — and don’t miss the latest gigs on our Job Board.