The Observatory: Recent Episodes
Design Observer
With Gail Bichler: Remote creative direction for the New York Times Magazine, editorial design fine art, and motherhood; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, The Fast and the Furious, Yale Mental Health Symposium
With Allison Arieff: The Magic of Empty Spaces, cities during COVID-19, Solving All The Wrong Problems, harvesting honey, The Good Fight
With Lee Moreau: How to teach during the pandemic, robust design, jigsaw puzzles, The New York Times Spelling Bee
With Hrishikesh Hirway: games and puzzles, The West Wing Weekly, soap operas, Home Cooking.
With Bobby C. Martin, Jr.: rebranding Champions Design; football in Washington; demands for change at design schools; cooking during quarantine.
Guest host Avery Trufelman talks about Articles of Interest, clothing, luxury; Larry Rosenberg’s Breath by Breath; Little Fires Everywhere on Hulu
Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters; Hrishi Hirway and Mike Errico; The Quiz Broadcast; Shakespeare and Co. Project
Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration; Unorthodox; My Brilliant Friend; The Affair; Anil Dash on the dangers of social media; Anna Wiener on Silicon Valley; quarantine dreams
Zoom aesthetics and COVID-19; Kyle Chayka on minimalism; Deborah Berke on shared spaces; Jessica Salfia’s poem “The First Lines of Emails I’ve Received While Quarantining”; Megan O’Grady on artistic recluses
Making art and design during the COVID-19 pandemic; Christoph Niemann and Daniella Zalcman; Adam Schlesinger; spec scripts for Larry David
Looking at COVID=19: Flattening the curve, Washington Post designers Harry Stevens on visualizing social distancing, Alissa Walker on how dots are people, Stephen Sondheim at 90
COVID-19, social distancing, Luō Dàwèi’s One Thousand Families project, hiring product designers, Eric Rosenberg’s prop designs for The Plot Against America, Joanne McNeil’s Lurking
With guest host Alissa Walker of L.A. Podcast: Barbara Kruger at Frieze Week; Destination Crenshaw; homelessness; urban design competitions, Rose Lyster on air travel; Molly Young on garbage language
The Trump Administration’s draft executive order Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again, the rise of the blur, a CBS brand book at the California Antiquarian Fair, Anna Wiener’s Uncanny Valley
Kyle Chayka’s “The Longing for Less”; minimalism; Hugh Weber joins Design Observer; Don Norman on collaboration; Maggie Gram on design thinking; the death of Mr. Peanut; Fanchon & Marco
Andrew Cuomo’s old-school political graphics; ridiculous subway ads, real and fake; Vaughan Oliver, John Baldessari, Sonny Mehta
Christmas cards, the Charles and Ray Eames collection, Didones, the Chobani effect, Hong Kong protest art, a dog who plays Jenga, Uncut Gems.
101 political images of 2010s; plus Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror; Ian McEwan’s Machines Like Me; Beck’s Hyperspace; Underworld’s Oblivion with Bells; The 1619 Project podcast; Esther Perel’s Where Should We Begin?; Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story; Steve Bannon’s American Dharma; Fleabag Season 2; Chernobyl; Anni Venti in Italia at the Piazza Ducale in Genoa; Oslo’s Viking Ship Museum; Vecchio Amaro del Capo; BrewDog’s Nanny State; and Athletic nonalcoholic beer.
Donald Trump’s handwriting; Michael Bloomberg, design patron; Jessica Helfand’s Face: A Visual Odyssey; Victor Papanek’s Design for the Real World; Heather Dewey-Halborg’s DNA portraits; Bulgarian socialist graphics
Painting on photographs, artists v. designers, the Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno, Richard Hollis designs for the Whitechapel.
Kate Crawford | Trevor Paglen: Training Humans, Derren Brown, MoMA expands again, slime mold, Gordon Salchow
Television: HBO’s Succession, The Deuce, The Politician, Face Values at Cooper Hewitt, Jessica Wynne photographs mathematician blackboards
The Periodic Table of the Elements, The Death of Design Portfolios, the 1619 Project, CityLab Maps Matter
Monotype acquired by private equity firm; Ebony archives and Johnson Publishing headquarters; Hal Prince; Ugly Gerry; Breezewood, PA
bookcover2019 challenge, J.D. Salinger, The demise of MAD Magazine, Oskar Schlemmer’s The Triadic Ballet, Don Wall Visionary Cities
Science poster redesign, Eli Baden-Lasar’s portraits of his sperm-donor siblings, Jony Ive parodies, a ridiculous commercial
The large Democratic field and the first 2020 debate, Harriet Tubman on the $20, Peter Saville’s cover for Joy Division’s “Unknown Pleasures,“ Edie McClurg.
Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition, Malta, The West Wing Weekly podcast, branded empathy, Chernobyl, Caravaggio’s Beheading of St. John the Baptist
Facebook’s redesign, Morning Edition’s new theme, Cris Shapan, Stanley Kubrick at the London Design Museum.
Notre Dame cathedral fire, Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg design systems, Mina Markham and Pantsuit, unidentifiable objects, Wesley Morris on romantic comedies.
2019 AIGA design conference, creative partnerships, Full Frontal’s Brexit video, film noir YouTube comment thread
Ralph Nader v. graphic design, libraries and serendipity, Sally Potter’s The Party, the shape of silence
Hilma af Klint at the Guggenheim, Kevin Roche and the Miller House, Josh Lipnik’s modern midwest tours, Ben Stiller plays Michael Cohen
Adam Grant, email response times, Slack, John Ruskin, Steven Soderbergh’s 2001 Oscars speech, Diana Vreeland Memo Generator
2020 presidential campaign logos, 50 Books | 50 Covers, the “creative” hustle, Ellsworth Kelly stamps, Olivia Colman in Flowers
Adam Moss, Tina Brown, and the future of print magazines; Rookie, Design Sponge, and the future of online magazines; Karen Green’s Frail Sister; Anni Albers at the Tate
Distinctive brands choose minimalist logos, remembering David Pease, Nicholas Rougeux revives Byrne’s Euclid, The Favourite
Elena Ferrante’s My Beautiful Friend on HBO, Olivia Jaimes’ Nancy, Esperanza Spalding, Tierra Whack, Aretha Franklin’s Amazing Grace, Max Richter, Henry Cobb: Words and Works, Oddityviz, The True Size, Dunkin’, Stack, Pamela’s gluten-free graham crackers, Clausthaler Dry-Hopped Non Alcoholic Beer
Sergei Skripal, Jamal Khashoggi, Bellingcat, Malachy Brown, visual investigations, Pablo Ferro, Ricky Jay, William Goldman, Boy Erased, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Glenn Gould’s manuscript for the Goldberg variations
The Design of Business | The Business of Design conference, Apple CarPlay and talking cars, HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Justin Timberlake, dogs watching TV, Visual Capitalist
The Cleveland Justice Center and Season 3 of Serial, adaptive reuse, the Secret History of the Future, Articles of Interest, The Romanoffs
VR typography, Glenn Gould hologram tour, Paul Rand ephemera auction, Robert Venturi, Mark Lamster’s Philip Johnson biography, Werner’s Nomenclature of Colors
Bob Woodward’s Fear, the Quiet Resistance, representing anonymity, Face Values at the London Design Biennale, QAnon infographics, Todd Alcott’s faux vintage book covers
Eataly World, HBO’s Succession, Betsy DeVos in McMansion Hell, Little Fires Everywhere, the Coltrane Circle
Wes Anderson in Italy; 3D printed Mars habitat competition; from Hilton to boutique hotels to Airbnb; designer baby names; the Vignelli townhouse
Musical theater, soundtracks, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata in D Minor, and more.
Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, a White House without culture, John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood, early Ivan Chermayeff book covers
Design Thinking Wars: Lee Vinsel vs. d.school; Alexandra Lange’s The Design of Childhood; The Incredibles 2; Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous
The president’s lawyer uses Comic Sans, speculative design, Let the Sun Shine In, crazy walls.
Prince Harry marries Meghan Markle; Tom Wolfe as design writer, Benedict Cumberbatch as Patrick Melrose; the scent of Play-Doh
The Age of Post-Authenticity and the Ironic Truths of Meme Culture, a Prince George parody account, American house numbers
Nixon-Humphrey, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The White Album, Laugh-In, LSD… and the meaning of anniversaries
Deleting Facebook, AI and images, Tree Change Dolls, Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano, listing for 450 W. Grixdale
Cape Town’s water crisis, Los Angeles’ first chief design officer, Lubalin 100, Walter Dorwin Teague’s Design This Day
A proposal to license designers, Black Panther, Legally Black movie posters, NASA’s Pluto site
Phantom Thread, John Perry Barlow, Cleveland Indians to retire Chief Wahoo, Obama portraits, riotous schnauzers
Cræft by Alexander Langlands, doctors and design, Sean Tejaratchi’s LiarTown, a pair of iRi NYC sneakers
Eva Hagberg Fisher on dressing for sexual harassment proceedings, Oprah at the Golden Globes, Print goes digital, Fire and Fury pop-up book, Jacques Tati’s PlayTime
New York Times Magazine, Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, favorite podcasts, Wormwood, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Ivan Chermayeff and American modernism, Kurt Andersen, Vincent Scully, Ivo van Hove’s The Fountainhead, Brothers in Arms
Fixing American democracy, Snøhetta’s plan for Philip Johnson’s AT&T Building, Internetting With Amanda Hess, Synoptical History of the Civil War
Muriel Cooper, Now You See It, Harvey Weinstein and #metoo, kilonova explosion, Lin-Manuel Miranda interviews Stephen Sondheim
Visualizing gun violence after Las Vegas, Louis Vuitton v. My Other Bag, tote bags, Helen Rosner on Olive Garden, Call My Agent!, Netflix in French
The Copenhagen Letter, Mike Monteiro’s Design the Right Thing, Branded by Memory, Google Quick, Draw!, Otl Aicher’s Isny, the Trash Isles.
Visualizing hurricanes, elections, and other future events; the Jefferson Davis Highway; Margaret Calvert and British road signs; Alexander Todorov’s Face Value
Hurricane Harvey, weather data visualization, electric cars, Taylor Swift, Scarfolk Council, the internet as an Uncanny Valley
Cursing, Anthony Scaramucci, the alt-right’s shit aesthetic, Tony Fadell and Silicon Valley regrets, John G. Morris, Donald Trump draws the Manhattan skyline
Pakistan, Donald Trump Jr., default fonts; Calibri, Courier, Hobo, Cooper Black; Silicon Valley corporate headquarters; subway signage mystery; The Turnaround; Steven Colbert’s Figure-It-Out-a-Tron
The new Ken dolls, Tonl and diversity in stock photography, Zillow threatens McMansion Hell, InspiroBot
Egregious email signatures, circular Twitter avatars, Wonder Woman, Demetri Martin’s Dean
Green lights for the Paris Climate Accord, NY Times Magazine comics issue, Lynda Barry in Family Circus, knitting as spycraft, Jim Russek’s poster for Our Town
A record-breaking Basquiat; design, life coaching, and therapy; Thomas de Monchaux reviews Wendy Lesser’s biography of Louis Kahn; a neural network names paint colors
Presidential libraries, Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles for Good Design 2017 Tech Industry Edition, Ai Weiwei, I.M. Pei
Earth Day, the March for Science, EPA Graphic Standards Manual, Design and Exclusion, Big Little Lies, Five Came Back
Twitter’s default avatar, border wall submissions, Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi ad, School for Justice, the Uline catalog
trypod, Dan Brown cover contest, Design in Tech, writing for designers, The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened, Wes Anderson’s Bar Luce
Peter York on autocrat chic, Sunday in the Park with George, BBC interview with Robert Kelly, Jessica Dimmock’s The Convention
Behance Design Trends of 2017, George Nelson’s How to See, Michael K. Williams, W.E.B. Du Bois’ infographics
Tattoos, Type 1 diabetes, ID cards, taking MBA students to the art gallery, Kerry James Marshall, Mark Rothko, Mike Mills, the 2017 Citizen Designer Pledge
Pantone’s color of the year, Time’s Person of the Year, Arrival, The Hater’s Guide to the Williams-Sonoma Catalog, Seinfeldia
TV party: Search Party, The Crown, Fleabag, Crisis in Six Scenes, Highston, I Love Dick, Daniella Zalcman, the fallout shelter sign
Election night, Brand Trump and the presidency, Design That Matters, Facebook’s flawed news feed
Marcin Wichary visits the Technology Museum of Emporda, Vine, Grand Central Station vistas, deluxe composition notebooks, Errol Morris on Elsa Dorfman, bad ballot design, Grilli Type’s GT America, Transparent, Elaine Lustig Cohen.
Campaign fatigue, advertising and viral video, voting technology, intellectualism in the design community, the art of David Pease, the 1986 Mets
Bathroom signs, MBA students, Mozilla and open logo design, The Commissar Vanishes, Masters of Sex
The Napalm Girl photo on Facebook, 9/11 out of context, Apple stores and the iPhone 7 launch, the Doctor Strangelove trailer, Wiener-Dog, Pantsuit
Samsung v. Apple, the International Style v. capitalism, Sausage Party, mozzarella sticks
Olympics, cursive handwriting, NASA’s secret art studio, gun sales on Facebook, #firstsevenjobs
Trump-Pence, Clinton-Kaine, Black Lives Matter, The Four Seasons, mapping the brain, the video essay
Brexit, borders, naming, Fiorello La Guardia and his airport, robot dogs, though leadership, Snapfax
Nutrition Facts, Mark Bittman’s food rating system, colon cancer screening, Time Well Spent, Peter Arno, Flat File
Instagram, rainbows, digital brutalism, Design: The Invention of Desire, the Freewrite.
Solitary confinement, virtual reality, design thinking for prisoners, Drew Hodges’s Broadway, The Paradise, Prince’s unpronounceable glyph
Innovators and maintainers, Bernie and Hillary, mapping and infrastructure, algorithms and Rembrandt
The Met and the logosphere, designing with scientists, the Clinton-Sanders graphics race
Behind the Bataclan, pigeon pathologists, Design Thinking at IBM, the Coke bottle at 100, Michael Gross
Milan, Mario Batali, Michelle Obama, Moshe Safdie, Modernism, MOO (our sponsor), Michael Erard, metaphor design, Macintosh icons, Massimo Vignelli....
Are boxing and photography hipster pleasures? Are they past their prime, or do they have a bright future?
Visualizing business data, a logo to mark Canada’s 150th anniversary of Confederation, and more.
Michael and Jessica discuss the The Grid, which uses artificial intelligence to design websites, the history of grids, and the unlikely success of coloring books for adults.
On this episode, Michael and Jessica talk about death (not taxes): how designers have to think about preventing death and representing death, and whether death is “just another design challenge.” Also, the color blue.
Michael and Jessica talk about a panel they participated in at the Paul Rand exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, plus the return of Mad Men and the fate of photography giants Kodak and Polaroid.
On this episode of The Observatory, Michael and Jessica talk about Jonathan Ive, the rollout of the Apple Watch, and Michael Graves
This week, Michael and Jessica talk about graphic designers on screen, highlights from What Design Sounds Like, and Michael’s trip to Design Indaba.
On this episode, Jessica Helfand talks about her Paris 140 series, and Michael Bierut describes his 100 Day Project + some of the cultural highlights of the year.
On this episode of The Observatory, Michael Bierut and Jessica Helfand discuss the midterm election and currency design.
On this episode of The Observatory, Jessica and Michael talk about design, performance, and fear of Ebola.