The final section in Thomas Heatherwick’s new show in Shanghai is called Humanise. The goal, say the show's organizers, is to invite visitors to discuss the emotional qualities of cities. (Hard not to think this is connected to his earlier work.)

How fonts make us feel turns out to have a basis in … geography.

In India, student projects in photography at the National Institute of Design focus on design and dignity in elder care, overcoming gender inequality, and the contested history of landscape.

Seeking creative solutions to address the climate crisis and kickstart the transition to a fair and circular future, What Design Can Do has launched the Redesign Everything challenge.  

This will set you right: the beautiful winners of the first-ever Nature Photography Contest.

Inspired by the film, “Free Willy,” a snowbound Michigan man carved a seven-foot-long killer whale on his lawn, earning accolades from his neighbors and drawing visitors from distant lands. "I went outside and felt the snow was so soft like clay or Play-Doh," Jeffrey Kosloski, 41, told USA Today. Kosloski, who works by day building cars at the GM Lansing Delta Assembly, stayed up all night to finish his masterpiece.

“Silence is so accurate.” The National Gallery’s current exhibition, “Mark Rothko: Paintings on Paper,” explores both the artist’s development (on paper) and the influence of music on his work. “I became a painter because I wanted to raise painting to the level of poignancy of music and poetry.” 

In New York, the Parsons School of Design will launch a program for designers who identify as disabled. More here. (And Design Observer bonus content here: an interview with Grace Jun.)

Seeking to “honor accomplished women in history”, Abrazo Homes—a production homebuilder in Albuquerque, New Mexico— named a home layout after Anne Frank, who hid from Nazis in an annex in the Netherlands before being killed in a concentration camp. They named another after Harriet Tubman, and—you can't make this up—a few more after types of beer — stout, I.P.A. and pilsner.

The United States Postal Service has released its new love stamp, designed by Antonio Alcalá of StudioA, with an illustration by Katie Kirk of Eight Hour Day and a typeface by Michael Doret. 

A third of UK-based teens surveyed say that climate change is “exaggerated.” Researchers from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) blame YouTube for failing to curb videos targeting young people with mis- and disinformation.

Tesla should not become an industry leader in AI and robotics…unless Elon Musk is given 25% voting control in the company. “Enough to be influential, but not so much that I can’t be overturned,” he X’d. 

Kid Cudi takes Manhattan by surprise.

Aarathi Krishnan, Senior Advisor for Strategic Foresight for the United Nations Development Program, is designing a systems approach across the Asia Pacific Bureau to build anticipatory capacities and decision intelligence to see, manage, and respond to short and long-term risk signals, policies, and investments.  

The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design, in conjunction with The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies—serious institutions, both—recognize beauty, innovation, and the need to pay rigorous attention to design's impact on our fragile planet. Armed with this criticality and sense of purpose, they have chosen to bestow one of their cherished 2023 Good Design Awards on … yes, you guessed it: a cat toilet.  

Transversal Design is the study of alternative media, speculative models, practices of care, tools for solidarity, and radical proposals for worlds in transition. Now you can get a Masters Degree in it—in Basel.

Scene hooks and dramatic moments provide vital contextual cues about … retail experience. Just ask Kevin Kelley. (Or—even better—Alfred Hitchcock!)

Design for “informality” is the practice of understanding emerging territories, encompassing spatial, social, cultural, traditional, and urban evolutionary processes. No matter how well-planned a city is, informal spaces such as homes, shops, and public areas will inevitably emerge, shaping urbanism itself.

UK-based Ed Fairburn is a visual artist who works on paper maps to construct stunning drawings that blend human faces with global topography. (Read an interview with the artist—in which he describes his process—here.)

Willy Frank, a member of the Nisqually tribe, fought throughout his life to protect endangered salmon and tribal treaty rights. Now he's getting his very own statue.

Michael Bennett, the former N.F.L. player, started designing furniture as a way to reconsider architecture and the spaces that Black people occupy.

Yowie!

“I like the idea that symphonies pick their musicians—they go behind a curtain and you don’t know who’s behind the curtain, you just pick from the music. You see costumes on the screen and don’t know whether this person is someone of color, young or old. Look at my work, not just the color of my skin or gender. Look at what I can do.” An interview with designer (and artist) Francine Jamison-Tanchuck.

How is a design executive like a cultural anthropologist?

Good news for all you weary travelers seeking a moment of respite upon clearing security at the airport: a new bench at Terminal C in Newark wins a design award from the American Institute of Architects.

Our friends at MIT Technology Review weigh in on what's next for AI with their best bets (and dire predictions) for 2024. (Don't miss the election information warnings.)

Donna J. Haraway once observed that in a shared world, nothing is connected to everything, but everything is connected to something. A new book—the proceedings of a 2021 conference with the beautiful title (Material Trajectories. Designing with Care)—explores this through an academic lens, with a nod to design as an expression of active matter. “The understanding of active matter,” write the editors, “can also be seen as an initiative against the constant passivation of matter caused, controlled, and exploited by modernist design, technology, and industry.” You can download the whole magnificent thing here.

Designer and architect Neri Oxman has been accused of plagiarism in over two dozen cases, including her doctoral dissertation.

New Yorkers: everybody into the floating, plus-shaped, self-filtering pool of East River water! Seriously.  

A cyberattack targeting a service provider took down the collections of a handful of US museums offline last week. The breach also exposed donor names, loan agreements, and the physical locations of many artworks. Among those affected were the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Rubin Museum of Art in New York, and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas.