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12.29.16

The Editors | Collections

The Ten Most Popular Essays of 2016

Here's what you enjoyed reading most on Design Observer this past year.

Adrian Shaughnessy | 01.04.16
Books. Still not dead.
Thoughts from a publisher, author, editor, and occasional designer of printed books.

Adam Harrison Levy | 02.04.16
Bowie and the Beats
Process and the poem

Michael Bierut | 03.01.16
Not Diving but Swimming
A new logo for the Met Museum raises questions about how we evaluate new identities.

Alice Twemlow | 04.07.16
Dodging, Dazzling, and Divulging
Design Responses to Mass Surveillance

Petr van Blokland | 04.14.16
The Future of Typography
System Reboot?

Steven Heller | 04.27.16
Dashboard Type
What Type of Driver Are You?

Véronique Vienne | 05.05.16
The Invention of Desire

What’s Bad about Good Design

Rob Walker | 05.05.16
Object Journalism at Mmuseumm
The new season of Mmuseumm speaks to our present, by way of unlikely objects.

Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand | 11.09.16
Let’s Get to Work
We must bear in mind that democracy is about who we are, not who’s temporarily in office.

Jason Grant | 11.23.16
Against Branding: Part 1 — Design and Conflict
Graphic design relates to conflict in at least two important ways. The first is by destructively concealing it. The second is by productively revealing it.

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GOOOOOOAL
Athletics Partner & Executive Creative Director, Malcolm Buick, describes their work creating and launching MLS GO.

Journalism
Over the course of the last twenty years, we’ve looked at the truncated narrative rhythms of Twitter, unpacked nineteenth century satire in France, climbed Ramparts, skewered Malcolm Gladwell, heralded critical writing, interviewed journalists (and investigative journalists), interviewed editors (and designers-turned-editors), analyzed subversive comics, critiqued newspaper redesigns, shared reflections on Gonzo Journalism and wondered if seeing really was believing.

Entertainment
Design is a natural topic for television. And for movies. And for everything in between, especially now that nearly all of these things are delivered across portable screens.

Humanism
What does design have to do with sadness, or fury? With kindness—or loss? With empathy, and asking better questions? (With honesty, and seeking better answers?) A fundamental tenet of design practice, humanism reminds us that we make things as people, for people: not for audiences, or for metrics, or for users—but for real people.

Science
Like designers in their attention to sentient observation, scientists are trained to ask penetrating questions.

Jobs | November 25

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