Observed | April 24
American food is increasingly channeled through a handful of companies: Amazon, Walmart, FreshDirect, Blue Apron. What do we lose if traditional neighborhood supermarkets go under?
Meet the man who’s going to save your neighborhood grocery store. [BV]
Timed to coincide with Easter, Earth Day and, for New Englanders, Patriot’s Day:
two billboards outside of Boston. [BV]
Observed | April 23
Public Sans is a new typeface from the US Government. According to the General Services Administration, “sometimes you need [a typeface] that’s simple, neutral, and isn’t Helvetica.” Not sure we agree. [BV]
Observed | April 22
A brief memoir of
growing up in the library. [BV]
Where can a teen get a poster in 2019? How does a teenager turn their bedroom into a shrine?
A wonderful history of the poster and it’s meaning past, current, and future. [BV]
In honor of Earth Day, three galleries that remind us of the beauty and power of nature:
the power of storms from Mitch Dobrowner,
amazing landscapes from Leah Kennedy, and
Earth from space by Astronaut Scott Kelly. [BV]
Observed | April 19
Spam musubi (a Hawaiian snack of canned meat served on rice and wrapped in nori) and other
unintended consequences of cultural exchange. [BV]
Despite their seeming environmental unfriendliness,
logos with factories and smokestacks have made a comeback in the US. [BV]
Observed | April 18
Post Typography created an
unconventional participatory campaign to support the Baltimore Museum of Art‘s conversation series on art, race, social justice, and imagining the future(s) we want. [BV]
Where do you stand on the “Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome Scale”?
Why your brain hates slowpokes. [BV]
Observed | April 17
An in-depth look at
how the Second World War warped the way United States mapped the world. [BV]
Observed | April 16
Joshua Dudley Greer logged 100,000 miles between 2011 and 2017, a period defined by the financial crisis and election, documenting what he saw along the U.S. Interstate Highway System. [BV]
Pete Buttigieg may be
the first candidate to anticipate (and provide for!) graphic design considerations. [JH]
Observed | April 11
The toxic disinformation of social media has rendered traditional forms of humor—
like satire—quaint and futile. [BV]
In a study of 26,000 people from over 100 countries, dark blue is the world’s most relaxing color, orange is the happiest, and pink is the sexiest. [BV]
Observed | April 10
Ever wondered
what a black hole looks like? Scientists reveal the first picture of a black hole. [BV]
Business Insider wrote about a Twitter thread where the Vignelli Center, Michael Bierut, Jesse Reed, and Alexandra Lange chatted about the difficulty of identifying Helvetica. [BV]
Observed | April 09
Nikil Saval in
The New Yorker on
how “good design” failed us. (via
James I. Bowie) [BV]
Observed | April 05
Some Friday fun: “A log flume winds its way around a watery course and slowly climbs the lift hill. Reaching the top, it then hurtles down the slope...Splash!”
But what if no one is riding? [BV]
The quest to acquire the oldest, most expensive book on the planet: unwrapping the most beautiful Gutenberg of them all. [BV]
Observed | April 04
“All submission to authority humiliates. All exercise of authority perverts.”
Roger Perry‘s photos of London graffiti in a time of recession, poor housing, and urban decay. [BV]
Patagonia will no longer emblazon its products with other companies’ logos
unless they commit to using their profits for the greater good. (via
James I. Bowie) [BV]
Observed | April 03
Lydian was created by designer and children’s book illustrator Warren Chappell in 1938, but didn’t really find its groove until after World War II when it was the font for Nancy Drew. [BV]
“When I visited for lunch, a few days ago, I found a tawny sea of tight jawlines and Goyard totes, women with blowouts as pristine as their natty Gucci loafers.”
A delicious review by Helen Rosner of “the one place in Hudson Yards that feels like New York”. [MB]
Observed | April 02
The
MITX DesignTech Summit is coming up next Wednesday, April 10th at the Innovation & Design Building in Boston. Join leaders from JPMorgan Chase, Automattic, Fidelity, athenahealth, Walmart & others as they discuss the business of design. (Check our twitter feed for a discount code.) [BV]
The New Yorker asked five designers, Na Kim, Alex Merto, Paul Sahre, Janet Hansen, and our very own Michael Bierut, to imagine
a cover for the Mueller report when it‘s released as a book. [BV]
Observed | April 01
A young paleontologist may have discovered a record of the most significant event in the history of life on Earth:
the day the dinosaurs died. [BV]
As we begin to judge the current 50 Covers entries,
this collection of 100 brilliant rejected book covers caught our attention. [BV]
Observed | March 28
Hilma af Klint is celebrated as an inventor of abstract art.
But she didn’t think of her work as abstract. [BV]
Observed | March 27
A new video about IDEO from
Dress Code features over 30+ interviews and is a look behind the curtain at
the global design firm, who for 40 years (and counting) has changed the way we think about design. [BV]
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