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Today, 01.02.10 (7)
Best Wishes for 2010 (3)
All That Remains (3)
Metabolic Dark City (8)
Forty years later: War Is Over! (If You Want It). Happy new year to all our readers from Design Observer. [MB]
It's New Year's Eve! Please allow Alie and Georgia to introduce you to the wonders of the Ham Daiquiri, the Bloody Bacon & Cheese, and the infamous McNuggetini. Cheers! [MB]
"What has made Mr. Levine endure — why, hands down, he’s the greatest modern-day caricaturist and one of the great artists of the last half-century — is his embrace of ambiguity." More on David Levine from Michael Kimmelman at the New York Times and James Kaplan at New York. Slide show here. [MB]
A Fast Company slideshow on the decade's 14 biggest design moments. [MB]
Norval White, co-author of the "authoritative, encyclopedic, opinionated and constantly consulted" AIA Guide to New York City, dies at 83. (The original 1968 edition of the AIA Guide was designed by Herb Lubalin.) [MB]
Helvetica and New York City Subway System: The True (Maybe) Story, a new limited edition book by Paul Shaw, is an expanded, annotated and profusely illustration version of Shaw's acclaimed 2008 online essay. [MB]
Indispensable: 2009's Best of Core 77. [MB]
After Swiss citizens voted to ban the construction of new minarets, Archinect asked for proposals that maintained the spirit of Muslim iconography while preserving the look of the Alpine landscape. "Can you design a minaret as event rather than object?" Results are here. (Thanks to Ernest Beck.) [JL]
"In the last ten years, designers had to dramatically change the way they worked: What other industry got to weather the dot-com crash, a real estate bubble, and the death of print?" Alissa Walker in Good. [MB]
David Levine, creator of "somberly expressive, astringently probing and hardly ever flattering caricatures of intellectuals and athletes, politicians and potentates," most notably for the New York Review of Books, dies at 83. [MB]
For a class I'm teaching, Zak Klauck is designing 100 one-minute posters, one a day for 100 days, each based on a word or phrase supplied by 100 different people. He needs more words and phrases. Please help! [MB]
"The aughts were the decade when design finally transitioned from the fetish of a certain subset of the urban elite to broad acceptance within mass consumer society." Mark Lamster weighs in on the last ten years of architecture and design. [MB]
Graphically summing up the last ten years: a witty chart by Phillip Niemeyer. [MB]
"A tsunami of changes has created daunting challenges and thrilling opportunities for designers. How have they fared?" Alice Rawsthorn sums up the decade: Trying to Be Responsible and Cutting-Edge, Too. [MB]
The last editor of I.D. says farewell. And a good follow-up by Cliff Kuang at Fast Company. [MB]
Los Angeles’ Metro is doing something that no transit agency in the country has ever done: it’s marketing itself like a private company, not to increase the bottom line, but to reduce traffic, clean the air, and make commuting less stressful. [MB]
Ceramics + letterpress = 12 Caslon 540 teacups. Lovely. [MB]
In case you missed it, the largest — 26 gigapixels — picture in the world. (Thanks to James Reyman.) [MB]
"I read it for the articles." From Alex Cornell, the genius behind the imaginary Wes Anderson Film Festival project, comes a funny — and completely plausible — proposal to rebrand Playboy, complete with a new, post-bunny icon and a gorgeous brand book. Take note, beleaguered CEO Scott Flanders! [MB]
Design Observer's Job Board has new jobs in Portland, Pittsburgh, Miami, Cincinnati, NYC, Zurich, Boston, SF and Beijing. Companies hiring include Sanrio, Carnegie Mellon, Landor, Steelcase Inc., New Balance, Hallmark, Creative Feed and Garmin International. Post your job today. [JSC]
British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver wins the 2010 TED Prize in large part for his efforts to combat the obesity epidemic. The $100,000 award is directed to fulfilling a wish that will change the world. Oliver's plan for the money will be announced at the TED conference in Long Beach, California, on February 10. [JL]
DO's Jessica Helfand and Bill Drenttel and their kids are off on a 167-day world tour. Wish Bill luck: he's quitting smoking. Godspeed, brave travelers! (The tasty site uses the Basic Maths theme for WordPress, designed by Khoi Vinh and Allan Cole.) [MB]
Design Observer's Job Board has new jobs in Studio City, NYC, Milan, Pittsburgh, Lancaster, Beijing, SF, Portland and DC. Companies hiring include IDEO, Parsons, Kohler Co., Nokia, Smith Brothers Agency, Odopod, Utley's Inc., Oracle and The Society for Neuroscience. Post your job today. [JSC]
Wow, almost any mystery can be solved with your computer's "enhance" function! (Via Kottke.) [MB]
Beware, the killer jellyfish of graphic design favors! [JH]
TWITTER
By Alexandra Lange
A conversation with the federal government's design excellence czar.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (13)
By James Wegener
In 1993, the City of Darkness, or the Walled City of Kowloon was demolished. To the 35,000 people living in this dense urban slum, the change was the end of a lawless existence. The area was a diplomatic black hole, the model of an anarchist society somehow allowed to grow organically without the aid of any government, existing somewhere outside of both British Hong Kong and China.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (8)
By Jason Orton
For the past three years, I have photographed what is left of an arboretum on the site of the Joyce Green Hospital in Dartford, Kent, southeast of London, England.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (3)
By Ken McCown
Photography has long been central to our understanding of buildings and landscapes — and for most of us the experience of places both iconic and ordinary comes largely via images. Landscape architecture professor Ken McCown takes pictures to explore "factors that create harmonious interactions" between design and nature. Here he trains his lens on found objects and landscapes from the American West to classical Rome to street scenes in Seoul.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (3)
By Sharon Olds
Q belonged to Q.&A.,
to questions, and to foursomes, and fractions,
it belonged to the Queen, to Quakers, to quintets —
READ MORE | COMMENTS (5)
By Jay Parkinson
We need designers to create from the ground up a new, sustainable, healthcare experience that's split into three arms, each paid for with different business models than are applied today.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (7)
By Steven Heller
Every year at this time, I deck the halls with boughs of holly, dream of a white Christmas, listen to Nat King Cole’s Silent Night like there’s no tomorrow, play A Charlie Brown Christmas incessantly, watch Miracle on 34th Street (the 1947 version with Edmund Gwenn) 20 times over and screen Home Alone at least once. What’s more, I actually see Mommy kissing Santa Claus. I love Christmas.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (5)
By Julie Lasky
A child's camera packaged as a kit of parts serves as both teaching tool and social medium.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (2)
PLACES: Best Wishes for 2010
PLACES: Crystal and Arabesque
OBSERVATORY: Ulysses: Fast Track to 1934 Best Seller
OBSERVATORY: Today, 12.19.09
CHANGE OBSERVER: Brass Knuckles and Better Ideas
PLACES: White Space
OBSERVATORY: Notes on Being Born on Soil
CHANGE OBSERVER: Green Sleeves
CHANGE OBSERVER: St. Augustine School Chicken Project
OBSERVATORY: Piet Zwart Collection
How Much Does Your Household Weigh?
Bradford McKee
Brass Knuckles and Better Ideas
The Editors
Holiday Books 2009
Summer 2003
Editors Page
Once in a Blue Moon [Speaking of Places]
Revitalizing Chicago Through Parks and Public Spaces [Place Views]
Competitions >>
Conferences & Events >>
Fellowships & Prizes >>
Organizations >>
Programs & Initiatives >>
Publications & Websites >>
Social Networks >>
Patrick Coyne, editor of Communication Arts, with special guests Milton Glaser and Cheryl Heller.
Listen >>
More Design Matters Archive >>
Mary Myers
The Wall Street Journal Guide to Information Graphics
Dona M. Wong
Konstantin Grcic: Decisive Design
Zoe Ryan
Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis
Al Gore
Sustainable Graphic Design: Tools, Systems and Strategies for Innovative Print Design
Wendy Jedlicka
Becoming an Architect: A Guide to Careers in Design
Lee W. Waldrep
Design Driven Innovation: Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating What Things Mean
Roberto Verganti
Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model
John Mullins & Randy Komisar
A Fine Line: How Design Strategies Are Shaping the Future of Business
Hartmut Esslinger
Master of Shadows: The Secret Diplomatic Career of the Painter Peter Paul Rubens
Mark Lamster
More Books Received >>
RECENT COMMENTS
Casey Jones (13)Today, 01.02.10 (7)
Best Wishes for 2010 (3)
All That Remains (3)
Metabolic Dark City (8)
OBSERVED
Eames Demetrios, grandson of Charles Eames, announces that 10/10/10 will be Powers of 10 Day. [JL]Forty years later: War Is Over! (If You Want It). Happy new year to all our readers from Design Observer. [MB]
It's New Year's Eve! Please allow Alie and Georgia to introduce you to the wonders of the Ham Daiquiri, the Bloody Bacon & Cheese, and the infamous McNuggetini. Cheers! [MB]
"What has made Mr. Levine endure — why, hands down, he’s the greatest modern-day caricaturist and one of the great artists of the last half-century — is his embrace of ambiguity." More on David Levine from Michael Kimmelman at the New York Times and James Kaplan at New York. Slide show here. [MB]
A Fast Company slideshow on the decade's 14 biggest design moments. [MB]
Norval White, co-author of the "authoritative, encyclopedic, opinionated and constantly consulted" AIA Guide to New York City, dies at 83. (The original 1968 edition of the AIA Guide was designed by Herb Lubalin.) [MB]
Helvetica and New York City Subway System: The True (Maybe) Story, a new limited edition book by Paul Shaw, is an expanded, annotated and profusely illustration version of Shaw's acclaimed 2008 online essay. [MB]
Indispensable: 2009's Best of Core 77. [MB]
After Swiss citizens voted to ban the construction of new minarets, Archinect asked for proposals that maintained the spirit of Muslim iconography while preserving the look of the Alpine landscape. "Can you design a minaret as event rather than object?" Results are here. (Thanks to Ernest Beck.) [JL]
"In the last ten years, designers had to dramatically change the way they worked: What other industry got to weather the dot-com crash, a real estate bubble, and the death of print?" Alissa Walker in Good. [MB]
David Levine, creator of "somberly expressive, astringently probing and hardly ever flattering caricatures of intellectuals and athletes, politicians and potentates," most notably for the New York Review of Books, dies at 83. [MB]
For a class I'm teaching, Zak Klauck is designing 100 one-minute posters, one a day for 100 days, each based on a word or phrase supplied by 100 different people. He needs more words and phrases. Please help! [MB]
"The aughts were the decade when design finally transitioned from the fetish of a certain subset of the urban elite to broad acceptance within mass consumer society." Mark Lamster weighs in on the last ten years of architecture and design. [MB]
Graphically summing up the last ten years: a witty chart by Phillip Niemeyer. [MB]
"A tsunami of changes has created daunting challenges and thrilling opportunities for designers. How have they fared?" Alice Rawsthorn sums up the decade: Trying to Be Responsible and Cutting-Edge, Too. [MB]
The last editor of I.D. says farewell. And a good follow-up by Cliff Kuang at Fast Company. [MB]
Los Angeles’ Metro is doing something that no transit agency in the country has ever done: it’s marketing itself like a private company, not to increase the bottom line, but to reduce traffic, clean the air, and make commuting less stressful. [MB]
Ceramics + letterpress = 12 Caslon 540 teacups. Lovely. [MB]
In case you missed it, the largest — 26 gigapixels — picture in the world. (Thanks to James Reyman.) [MB]
"I read it for the articles." From Alex Cornell, the genius behind the imaginary Wes Anderson Film Festival project, comes a funny — and completely plausible — proposal to rebrand Playboy, complete with a new, post-bunny icon and a gorgeous brand book. Take note, beleaguered CEO Scott Flanders! [MB]
Design Observer's Job Board has new jobs in Portland, Pittsburgh, Miami, Cincinnati, NYC, Zurich, Boston, SF and Beijing. Companies hiring include Sanrio, Carnegie Mellon, Landor, Steelcase Inc., New Balance, Hallmark, Creative Feed and Garmin International. Post your job today. [JSC]
British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver wins the 2010 TED Prize in large part for his efforts to combat the obesity epidemic. The $100,000 award is directed to fulfilling a wish that will change the world. Oliver's plan for the money will be announced at the TED conference in Long Beach, California, on February 10. [JL]
DO's Jessica Helfand and Bill Drenttel and their kids are off on a 167-day world tour. Wish Bill luck: he's quitting smoking. Godspeed, brave travelers! (The tasty site uses the Basic Maths theme for WordPress, designed by Khoi Vinh and Allan Cole.) [MB]
Design Observer's Job Board has new jobs in Studio City, NYC, Milan, Pittsburgh, Lancaster, Beijing, SF, Portland and DC. Companies hiring include IDEO, Parsons, Kohler Co., Nokia, Smith Brothers Agency, Odopod, Utley's Inc., Oracle and The Society for Neuroscience. Post your job today. [JSC]
Wow, almost any mystery can be solved with your computer's "enhance" function! (Via Kottke.) [MB]
Beware, the killer jellyfish of graphic design favors! [JH]
Please wait while Design Observer tweets load.
By Eric BakerChange Observer
Casey Jones
By Alexandra Lange A conversation with the federal government's design excellence czar.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (13)
Observatory
Metabolic Dark City
By James WegenerIn 1993, the City of Darkness, or the Walled City of Kowloon was demolished. To the 35,000 people living in this dense urban slum, the change was the end of a lawless existence. The area was a diplomatic black hole, the model of an anarchist society somehow allowed to grow organically without the aid of any government, existing somewhere outside of both British Hong Kong and China.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (8)
Change Observer
All That Remains
By Jason OrtonFor the past three years, I have photographed what is left of an arboretum on the site of the Joyce Green Hospital in Dartford, Kent, southeast of London, England.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (3)
Places
Found Landscapes
By Ken McCownPhotography has long been central to our understanding of buildings and landscapes — and for most of us the experience of places both iconic and ordinary comes largely via images. Landscape architecture professor Ken McCown takes pictures to explore "factors that create harmonious interactions" between design and nature. Here he trains his lens on found objects and landscapes from the American West to classical Rome to street scenes in Seoul.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (3)
Observatory
Q
By Sharon OldsQ belonged to Q.&A.,
to questions, and to foursomes, and fractions,
it belonged to the Queen, to Quakers, to quintets —
READ MORE | COMMENTS (5)
Change Observer
The Road to Wellville
By Jay ParkinsonWe need designers to create from the ground up a new, sustainable, healthcare experience that's split into three arms, each paid for with different business models than are applied today.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (7)
Observatory
Christmas Schmaltz
By Steven Heller Every year at this time, I deck the halls with boughs of holly, dream of a white Christmas, listen to Nat King Cole’s Silent Night like there’s no tomorrow, play A Charlie Brown Christmas incessantly, watch Miracle on 34th Street (the 1947 version with Edmund Gwenn) 20 times over and screen Home Alone at least once. What’s more, I actually see Mommy kissing Santa Claus. I love Christmas.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (5)
Change Observer
Bigshot Camera
By Julie Lasky A child's camera packaged as a kit of parts serves as both teaching tool and social medium.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (2)
Other Recent Posts
PLACES: Best Wishes for 2010
PLACES: Crystal and Arabesque
OBSERVATORY: Ulysses: Fast Track to 1934 Best Seller
OBSERVATORY: Today, 12.19.09
CHANGE OBSERVER: Brass Knuckles and Better Ideas
PLACES: White Space
OBSERVATORY: Notes on Being Born on Soil
CHANGE OBSERVER: Green Sleeves
CHANGE OBSERVER: St. Augustine School Chicken Project
OBSERVATORY: Piet Zwart Collection
RECENT HIGHLIGHTS
William W. BrahamHow Much Does Your Household Weigh?
Bradford McKee
Brass Knuckles and Better Ideas
The Editors
Holiday Books 2009
ADS VIA THE DECK
DESIGN OBSERVER JOBS
Places: From the Archive
ParksSummer 2003
Editors Page
Once in a Blue Moon [Speaking of Places]
Revitalizing Chicago Through Parks and Public Spaces [Place Views]
Change Observer: Resources
Academic Programs >>Competitions >>
Conferences & Events >>
Fellowships & Prizes >>
Organizations >>
Programs & Initiatives >>
Publications & Websites >>
Social Networks >>
Audio: Design Matters Archive
Patrick CoynePatrick Coyne, editor of Communication Arts, with special guests Milton Glaser and Cheryl Heller.
Listen >>
More Design Matters Archive >>
Observatory Archive
Books + Store: Books Received
Andrea Cochran: LandscapesMary Myers
The Wall Street Journal Guide to Information Graphics
Dona M. Wong
Konstantin Grcic: Decisive Design
Zoe Ryan
Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis
Al Gore
Sustainable Graphic Design: Tools, Systems and Strategies for Innovative Print Design
Wendy Jedlicka
Becoming an Architect: A Guide to Careers in Design
Lee W. Waldrep
Design Driven Innovation: Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating What Things Mean
Roberto Verganti
Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model
John Mullins & Randy Komisar
A Fine Line: How Design Strategies Are Shaping the Future of Business
Hartmut Esslinger
Master of Shadows: The Secret Diplomatic Career of the Painter Peter Paul Rubens
Mark Lamster
More Books Received >>
Recommended Books
The Ongoing Moment
Geoff Dyer
A weirdly wonderful semi-fictional account of the canonical figures in the history of photography by genre-resistant writer Geoff Dyer. Organized according to a contingent taxonomy of subjects such as hats, benches, stairways and gas stations that recur in photos by Walker Evans, André Kertész, Edward Weston, Diane Arbus et al, Dyer attempts to “see if style could be identified in and by — if it inhered in — content.” [AT]
Buy This Book >>
More Recommended Books >>
Geoff Dyer
A weirdly wonderful semi-fictional account of the canonical figures in the history of photography by genre-resistant writer Geoff Dyer. Organized according to a contingent taxonomy of subjects such as hats, benches, stairways and gas stations that recur in photos by Walker Evans, André Kertész, Edward Weston, Diane Arbus et al, Dyer attempts to “see if style could be identified in and by — if it inhered in — content.” [AT]
Buy This Book >>
More Recommended Books >>
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
Lynne Truss
Reaching deep down to get in touch with her inner grammarian, Truss reveals her zero tolerance to punctuation, and explains how even the simplest of errors go a long way toward making make us sound truly idiotic. For those guilty of interjecting the word "like" into every single sentence, this book should be tatooed to your face. [JH]
Buy This Book >>
More Recommended Books >>
Lynne Truss
Reaching deep down to get in touch with her inner grammarian, Truss reveals her zero tolerance to punctuation, and explains how even the simplest of errors go a long way toward making make us sound truly idiotic. For those guilty of interjecting the word "like" into every single sentence, this book should be tatooed to your face. [JH]
Buy This Book >>
More Recommended Books >>
Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals
Christopher Payne
Beautifully researched, exquisitely photographed, expertly composed and edited, this book takes readers on an engrossing tour of abandoned state mental institutions across the nation. Though devoid of living souls, Asylum is every bit the portrait: it's a portrait of a lost generation, that reverberates with human tenderness on every page. Extraordinary. [JH]
Buy This Book >>
More Recommended Books >>
Christopher Payne
Beautifully researched, exquisitely photographed, expertly composed and edited, this book takes readers on an engrossing tour of abandoned state mental institutions across the nation. Though devoid of living souls, Asylum is every bit the portrait: it's a portrait of a lost generation, that reverberates with human tenderness on every page. Extraordinary. [JH]
Buy This Book >>
More Recommended Books >>
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