Design Observer Turns 10

Design Observer was created around a controversial talk — "Culture is not Always Popular" — delivered by William Drenttel and Jessica Helfand at the 2003 AIGA conference in Vancouver. That talk was one of our first posts on Design Observer, 10 years ago this month.

Since then we've published over 5,100 essays from over 700 authors. We've received nearly 29,000 comments, and published hundreds of slideshows. Design Observer has grown from a single blog to a multi-channel site: four years ago we launched Change Observer and added Places Journal, expanding our content to include social innovation and urbanism. Since 2009 Design Observer has served as the online home for Design Matters with Debbie Millman. And this September, we launched our newest podcast series, Insights Per Minute.

At the AIGA conference in Minneapolis today, we will present a film — directed by Teddy Blanks and Andrew Sloat — celebrating the last decade . And soon we'll be announcing our 10th anniversary "pop up" store where we'll be selling books, posters, and other miscellany from all our contributors.

We plan to celebrate all year and we're glad you'll be here with us. As ever, we welcome your comments, appreciate your support, and look forward to the next decade.

Design Observer was founded by Michael Bierut, and Jessica Helfand.

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