Observed
At 10 AM today, Wednesday, October 4, show your support for libraries and the freedom to read on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and more. Use the hashtag
#FreedomToRead to share why open access to books, information, and knowledge is important to you or your community. More
here.
On
nurturing creativity in children—and for the rest of us.
The future of design education—a compendium of writings by a powerhouse roster of seasoned educators and practitioners—and
downloadable here.
Architect Beverly Willis, who got her start as a designer in Hawaii, where she studied fresco painting under the painter and muralist
Jean Charlot, has died. She was 95.
Horace Ové, considered the first Black director to make a feature-length film in Britain (and knighted for his services to media) has died.
The Trinidadian photographer and filmmaker was 86.
Did you know the iconic Mini Cooper
owes its design inspiration to a Greek designer? You do now!
“Doesn’t it just scream “lived-in”? Probably because I was screaming so maniacally while bludgeoning it with my spoon.”
A three year old takes on interior design, via McSweeneys.
Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month?
Dial it back, says the design columnist at the
Los Angeles Times. “What I’m not celebrating is the related graphic design, which is often a pastiche of brightly-colored patterns and stylized decorative fonts with awful names like ‘
Taco Modern.’”
Rami Al-Ali
becomes the first Syrian designer to be recognized by the Business of Fashion list.
Want to fully embrace the circular economy? “The design industry needs to let go of its obsession with the new and start venerating the patina of age,”
says Katie Treggiden.
The world’s oldest shoes — sandals, actually — have been found in a cave in Spain. Estimated to be 6,200 years old, the elegant weave and classical details took the wearer from day to night in comfort and style.
AI and regulating the use of actor likenesses move front and center
as contract talks continue in Hollywood. (Here is SAG-AFTRA’s
dental plan information.)
No,
Tom Hanks is not trying to sell you an affordable dental plan. (It’s an AI deep fake video.)
Trauma-informed design “realizes how the physical environment affects individuals, recognizes that it can have a physiological and emotional impact,” In Pittsburgh,
thinking about housing, dignity, and more.
“Instead of rooms or units, each resident gets a “home” on a quiet little indoor street reminiscent of the neighborhoods many of them grew up in.”
Rethinking nursing home design, and its impact on memory care.
From tiny, moss-enshrouded plantation plots to sprawling urban sites, tens of thousands of Black burial grounds lie in ruins, their history fading or lost. Three Black women, shocked by the condition of cemeteries in Washington, Georgia, and Texas, have turned their anger into action. None have prior experience in historic preservation, landscape architecture, or design. But like many others
working to save Black cemeteries, they view the work as a sacred trust and payment of a debt to ancestors who led the way.
What does it mean to say games have objective truth in them? Game enthusiasts,
look no further. (And you should subscribe to this wonderful newsletter, too.)
Helen Cammock’s
I WIll Keep My Soul is a new “prismatic” artist’s book, just out from our friends at Siglio Press. The book also corresponds to
a city-wide, multi-site exhibition of film, performance, music, archival documents and books opening in New Orleans in October.
Legendary editor George Gendron interviews legendary everything, Gloria Steinem.
A Native American man
was shot at a New Mexico rally acknowledging the removal of a controversial statue of conquistador Juan de Oñate. The rally was organized by Native American group The Red Nation, the attacker was wearing a red MAGA hat. The victim is in stable condition.
Jessica Helfand, a founding editor of Design Observer, is an award-winning graphic designer and writer. A former contributing editor and columnist for Print, Eye and Communications Arts magazine, she is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale and a recent laureate of the Art Director’s Hall of Fame. Jessica received both her BA and MFA from Yale University where she has taught since 1994. In 2013, she won the AIGA medal. 
