http://www.designobserver.com/ en-us 2007-10-15T10:43:40-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/028730.html I’ve always wondered why anyone with taste would pay thousands of dollars to publish one of those text-heavy, type-awful, full-page magazine advertisements void of any semblance of graphic design nuance or sophistication. Steven Heller 2007-10-14T10:16:02-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/028065.html It is now a Design Observer tradition to host the best party at the AIGA Biennal Conference. This year's event is in Denver at The Milk Bar @ The Shelter. Friday, October 12 from 9:00pm to 2:00am. 1037 Broadway, "South of Colfax Nightlife District." The Editors 2007-10-11T18:00:40-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/028637.html Officially published for the first time as a posthumous tribute: a loving parody of the writing of the late, great architectural critic Herbert Muschamp. Michael Bierut 2007-10-09T00:20:00-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/028159.html The New York Times disappear? Why cannot The New York Times simply index the art that it publishes, at least leaving the bibliographic tracings of the work in their newspaper?]]> William Drenttel 2007-10-06T10:30:00-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/028198.html Remember back in the late 1980s, when Minneapolis was a hotbed of creative energy? Back when brochures were tied together with braid and twigs? Minnesota was making a play for the next big thing: the North Woods look. Well, it's back... William Drenttel 2007-10-03T19:42:26-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/028541.html For Stan Brakhage, that concentration resulted in extraordinary explorations of many things, including the life cycle of a moth, caught on adhesive strips of tape, and subsequently captured on film where it regained — however briefly — the magnificent illusion of mobility. For designers, faced by budgets and clients and deadlines, the luxury of so much isolation seems a distant, if not an altogether perverse paradigm. But are these intentions really so mutually exclusive? Jessica Helfand 2007-10-01T08:02:47-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/028447.html This slideshow of photographs from 1989 is offered in solidarity with the people of Burma — as they again confront one of the most brutal regimes in the world. William Drenttel 2007-09-28T13:30:18-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/028168.html Times promotion department provided a viable answer in the form of its 65 Ways to Decorate with Books in Your Home, a book/zine with a reasonable $1 cover price. Steven Heller looks here for answers to repurpose of these venerable materials into useful life-enhancing goods.]]> Steven Heller 2007-09-26T03:20:00-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/027553.html My art school portfolio has sat in a box, largely untouched, in the closets and basements of the three places I've lived in the last 27 years, sort of like a slowly decaying design time capsule. A few weeks ago, I opened it up for the first time in a long time. Michael Bierut 2007-09-21T02:50:00-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/027986.html Dmitri Siegel discusses graphic design authorship and the impending release of Elliott Earls’ new film, The Sarany Motel. Dmitri Siegel 2007-09-18T09:33:58-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/027657.html Before long, many designers burn out by promising unrealistic turnaround on projects, working at levels that don’t accommodate a balanced life, and closing down any time for reflection on the work they’re doing and on the world around them. I believe as educators, we need to consider how we introduce students to reflective practice, how we actually slow down and pace the physical execution of work in order to design smart. Guest Observer 2007-09-15T11:14:16-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/027693.html Semina, gallerist, and photographer, too a picture of his landlady while he was living in Larkspur, California. We see her (the landlady!) sprawled across a bed dressed in a bra and skirt, casually holding a pistol...]]> Lorraine Wild 2007-09-12T07:32:04-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/028036.html In 2004, the paper targets at the Coney Island shooting gallery featured a hand-drawn Osama Bin Laden. Guest Observer 2007-09-10T20:52:21-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/027923.html Yet once Graphic Design is introduced in the classroom, how do educational offerings differ? Herewith — and in the spirit of "la rentrée" — is an extremely random sampling. Jessica Helfand 2007-09-08T09:34:51-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/027882.html Wanting to be taken seriously, designers yearn to be respected for their minds. Yet they take their real gifts — a miraculous fluency with beauty, an ability to manipulate form in a way that can touch people's hearts — for granted. Michael Bierut 2007-09-05T12:07:14-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/027798.html Today, the comparatively prehistoric graphic vocabulary of the early web has either been forgotten, or is simply regarded with the facile mockery that comes of 20/20 hindsight. Instead, they are an important part of internet history, and have, intended or not, a strange beauty. Guest Observer 2007-09-01T16:54:08-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/027673.html The aim in this essay is not to raise mass consciousness about gum pollution. Over the past year, I’ve been something of a gumshoe, investigating and documenting patterns of gum goop, and talking to perpetrators and victims alike. Now I’m ready to share my findings. Steven Heller 2007-08-30T09:06:36-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/027784.html To what extent does design criticism inspire a reaction; to whom is criticism addressed and what happens as a result of it being read? This article discusses the way in which an excerpt from a review of a 1955 Buick unexpectedly inspired a painting by one of the world's best-known Pop artists, Richard Hamilton. Alice Twemlow 2007-08-26T21:51:59-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/027778.html The Folding Paper Box Association of America would influence more than just packaging regulations: a half century before the Poynter Institute would claim authorship for its revolutionary Eye-Trac research, the FPBAA was already tracking viewers' visual responses to packaging... Jessica Helfand 2007-08-23T10:54:17-05:00 http://www.designobserver.com/archives/027474.html Design for the Other 90%. Here, I thought, was an exhibition I could enthusiastically embrace. Unfortunately...]]> David Stairs 2007-08-20T09:53:38-05:00 Our site is a member of The Deck, a targeted ad network that delivers a single ad impression for each page view and only accepts ads for products or services we have paid for and/or used. 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