Error: SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 1030 Got error 28 from storage engineError: SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 1030 Got error 28 from storage engineError: SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 1030 Got error 28 from storage engineError: SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 1030 Got error 28 from storage engine The Observatory Episode 135: Home for the Holidays: Design Observer

Advertise | Masthead

12.17.20

Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand | Audio

Episode 135: Home for the Holidays

Michael rejoins Jessica for the last episode of 2020, to look back at a difficult year that disrupted so many routines, including sitting down every other week to record an episode of this podcast:

It's actually become hard for me just to understand the value of listening to myself talk, hearing my own voice…and the assumption it implies that everything I say is worth listening to.

I've had some really rewarding experiences where I found myself in situations where I've been able to just lurk on the outskirts of things and listen and learn and not feel that I was there to take control of the situation or even make an occasional speech, but just to drink it in.

Also mentioned this week:

BankerWessel
Alan Fletcher
Fast Company, 10 New Rules of Design
Mellon Foundation, The Monuments Project
A French Village trailer
I May Destroy You
The Queen’s Gambit
The Crown
Mank
How To With John Wilson
Randy Rainbow, Gee, Anthony Fauci!
Stuart Thompson and Jorge Colombo, New York Times, Find Your Place in the Vaccine Line

Subscribe to The Observatory on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app, or follow Design Observer on Spotify or Soundcloud.

And a big thank you to Baronfig for their support this episode

More from Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand

Episode 127: Fear and Longing
Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters; Hrishi Hirway and Mike Errico; The Quiz Broadcast; Shakespeare and Co. Project

Episode 126: Screens and Dreams
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

Episode 125: Zoom Aesthetics
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

Episode 124: That Thing You Do
Making art and design during the COVID-19 pandemic; Christoph Niemann and Daniella Zalcman; Adam Schlesinger; spec scripts for Larry David

Episode 123: Closing Doors, Opening Doors
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

Jobs | November 25