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Observatory

Craft

05.18.13: Alexandra Lange

Dream Weaver
On a retrospective of the work of midcentury sculptor Ruth Asawa at Christie's, her first solo show in New York in 50 years.
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05.14.13: Alexandra Lange

Anxiety, Culture and Commerce
Is the museum store a distraction or an enticement?
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04.02.13: Rob Walker

Bill for a Bowl
Considering dollar value as one of many things a bowl might contain.
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03.17.13: John Foster

Dreams of the Sonora Aero Club
The mysterious, double-sided, collaged watercolor drawings that comprise the journals of Charles August Albert Dellschau
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03.07.13: Alexandra Lange

After the Museum: The Tumblr
To create metamuseum.tumblr.com, a multi-museum, multi-curator Tumblr @MADMuseum, I saw it as a kind of curatorial game: Show Me What You’ve Got.
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02.13.13: Michael Bierut

Chromatophobia
Michael Bierut on his chromatophobia.
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02.04.13: Alexandra Lange

Why Bernadette Fox Is Scary
The heroine of Where’d You Go, Bernadette is an award-winning female architect. Don’t envy her life.
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01.06.13: John Foster

Accidental Mysteries, 01.06.13
Accidental Mysteries is an online curiosity shop of extraordinary things, mined from the depths of the online world and brought to you each week by John Foster, a writer, designer and longtime collector of self-taught art and vernacular photography. This week's focus is The Alchemist’s Notebook.
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12.23.12: John Foster

Accidental Mysteries, 12.23.12
Accidental Mysteries is an online curiosity shop of extraordinary things, mined from the depths of the online world and brought to you each week by John Foster, a writer, designer and longtime collector of self-taught art and vernacular photography. This week's focus is the Art of Vintage Signs.
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12.03.12: Alexandra Lange

Reintroducing the Tilletts
If you are interested in textile design, mid-century style, or creative partnerships, I would urge you to go visit “The World of D.D. and Leslie Tillett” at the Museum of the City of New York.
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12.02.12: John Foster

Accidental Mysteries, 12.02.12
Accidental Mysteries is an online curiosity shop of extraordinary things, mined from the depths of the online world and brought to you each week by John Foster, a writer, designer and longtime collector of self-taught art and vernacular photography. This week's focus is Redware.
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11.21.12: Alexandra Lange

3rd Annual Holiday Card Review
Holiday card designs for 2012 reveal the social media preoccupations of their buyers, whether it is Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram or old-fashioned (perhaps Downton Abbey-inspired?) stationery.
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10.31.12: Alexandra Lange

Dot Supreme
On the enduring power of the simplest shape, from corporations to children’s books.
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10.29.12: Michael Bierut

Style: An Inventory
Style: An Inventory by Michael Bierut
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09.30.12: John Foster

Accidental Mysteries, 09.30.12
Accidental Mysteries is an online curiosity shop of extraordinary things, mined from the depths of the online world and brought to you each week by John Foster, a writer, designer and longtime collector of self-taught art and vernacular photography. This week's focus is art without artists.
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08.19.12: John Foster

Accidental Mysteries, 08.19.12
Accidental Mysteries is an online curiosity shop of extraordinary things, mined from the depths of the online world and brought to you each week by John Foster, a writer, designer and longtime collector of self-taught art and vernacular photography. This week's focus is clothing.
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05.20.12: John Foster

Accidental Mysteries, 05.20.12
Accidental Mysteries, a weekly cabinet of visual curiosities curated by John Foster, highlights images of design, art, architecture and ephemera brought to light by the magic of the digital age. This week's focus is paper folding art.
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05.18.12: Rob Walker

The Theater of Making
What videos depicting the story of stuff-being-made are really about.
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03.20.12: John Thackara

It’s Not Just The Bags
Design + Craft: The Brazilian Path by Adelia Borges explores the complex relationship between designers from the Northern hemishphere and indigenous artists in the Southern hemisphere, specifically craft communities in Brazil.
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02.04.12: Alexandra Lange

Want to Buy A Valentine?
You can buy a valentine handmade by someone else. You can send your beloved a vintage card using an app. But where's the romance in that?
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12.07.11: Alexandra Lange

When Modernists Get Crafty
The Museum of Arts and Design's Crafting Modernism makes a good case for bringing back macrame.
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08.18.11: Alexandra Lange

A Stitch in Time
Sewing for your daughter, circa 1965.
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05.17.11: Michael Bierut

Seven Things Designers Can Learn from Stand Up Comics
Stand up comedy, a high-risk creative enterprise, has interesting lessons for designers.
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04.29.11: Alexandra Lange

In T: High Fiber
"Knoll Textiles, 1945-2010" opens new territory in midcentury design – upholstery – and shows us more than a few new female designers.

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03.17.11: James Biber

Pictures of Pictures
James Biber gives us a close new look at familiar paintings.
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12.22.10: Alexandra Lange

Shopping D/R at Etsy
Want to recreate D/R this Christmas? Etsy provides the goods.

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12.10.10: Nancy Levinson

Pillow Culture
Beyond sleep: the exhibition Pillow Culture looks at the pillow as designed object and technological artifact.
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11.04.10: Laura Tarrish

Laura Tarrish's Collection of Miniature Chairs
Laura Tarrish shares her collection of miniature chairs.
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10.19.10: Alexandra Lange

On Design Observer: Girard + Folk Art
Alexander Girard fascinates me as an architect who refused to play the skyscraper game, focusing his considerable talents on restaurants, textiles, exhibitions and murals.
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09.29.10: Adam Harrison Levy

The Wood Stacker
All his work, freed him from a dependency on oil. His heat is local.
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09.26.10: Alexandra Lange

Masdar: So Many Questions
I was not planning to post anything about Sukkah City. It all just looked like an architecture studio: so much effort, such worked-over results, and an inability to see the forest for the trees.
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12.05.09: Alexandra Lange

Dumbing Down DIY
DIY Anni Albers Strainer and Paper Clips Jewelry Kit is dumbing down the DIY movement.
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09.20.09: Alexandra Lange

Crafting A City
Two of my favorite things came together this weekend: Dutch design and Governors Island.
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08.12.09: Alexandra Lange

Fashion Plates
Do little girls still play with paper dolls?
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03.03.05: Rob Walker

For Kicks
A look at one facet of the sneaker phenomenon — that is, the way that fashion and brand loyalty can come together in what might be considered the folk art of a consumer culture.
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02.02.05: Rob Walker

Hyperreality Hobbying
“Reborning'” is the name that has emerged for a curious process of altering and enhancing a baby doll to look and even to feel as much like a human baby as possible.
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