Announcement: Rob Walker Joins Design Observer

When we launched our blogging channel — Observers Room — last November, we promised that it would be "home to bloggers and critics, commentators and pundits, artists and writers eager to share their opinions on a host of subjects — each clocking in somewhere between the brevity of the 140-character tweet and the expansiveness of the 1,000-word essay."

Today, we are pleased to announce that Rob Walker is joining Design Observer as a contributing writer — and as the newest blogger in our Observers Room.

Many of our readers will know Rob Walker from his weekly "Consumed" column in The New York Times Magazine (2004-2011), where he regularly expanded (and often confounded) our understanding of design and marketing. His evolving perspectives on consumerism led to his most recent book, Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are, as well as to numerous projects and online initiatives (Significant Objects, The Hypothetical Development Organization, Unconsumption, and MLK BLVD). In addition to his new role at The New York Times Magazine as a feature writer, Rob is often a commentator on the subject of material culture, notably in the documentary Objectified.

We are also adding over fifty of Rob's essays from the past decade to our archive, creating a deep resource for our readers around the viewpoints and commentaries of this outstanding writer. His author page can be found here, including biography, books and projects, as well as links to his past essays, articles and speaking engagements. You may also follow Rob on Twitter at @notrobwalker. His first Observers Room blog post can be found here.

Please join us in welcoming Rob to Design Observer.