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04.02.13: Rob Walker
Bill for a BowlConsidering dollar value as one of many things a bowl might contain.
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03.13.13: Kate Cullinane
The Original ParadoxThe value of creating new designs, rather than being "original".
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03.07.13: Alexandra Lange
After the Museum: The TumblrTo 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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01.07.13: Alexandra Lange
George Nelson in Two DimensionsIgnore the Coconuts and Marshmallows, admire George Nelson's modular graphics.
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10.21.12: John Foster
Accidental Mysteries, 10.21.12Accidental 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 Time.
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07.28.12: Rob Walker
De-weaponization by DesignRiffing on their weird resonance of a violent object: brass knuckles.
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06.15.12: Alexandra Lange
The Charismatic Megafauna of DesignIdentifying the "charismatic megafauna" of design and the critical uses of their popularity.
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03.09.12: Nancy Levinson
Design Indaba 2012Design Indaba 2012 gathered creative people from graphic and product design, architecture and landscape, film and video, not to mention Danish gastronomy and Bollywood movies.
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02.13.12: Alexandra Lange
Round Thermostats and Crystal Lanterns, RevisitedOld designs, new tricks: updates on lawsuits filed against the new Nest thermometer, and on behalf of midcentury masterpiece Manufacturers Hanover.
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01.26.12: Alexandra Lange
Married at MossFarewell to Moss, the Soho design shop that let buy (if not touch) our museum-quality dreams.
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12.22.11: Alexandra Lange
Girard the MagnificentIs it enough to be gorgeous? If so, Todd Oldham and Keira Coffee's 15-pound Alexander Girard wins Book of the Year.
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12.14.11: Alexandra Lange
Reinventing the ThermostatWhat the designer of the new Nest thermostat didn't learn from Henry Dreyfuss.
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12.12.11: Eugenia Bell
Eliot NoyesEliot Noyes' under-recognized reputation deserves appreciation.
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12.07.11: Alexandra Lange
When Modernists Get CraftyThe Museum of Arts and Design's Crafting Modernism makes a good case for bringing back macrame.
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12.01.11: Alexandra Lange
Cooking with the EamesesA new book chronicles one family's life with nine pieces of Eames.
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07.30.11: Julie Lasky
Happy Birthday, HandsomeGetting tired of praise for the IBM Selectric? What else do you expect from writers?
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05.27.11: Alexandra Lange
On GOOD: Why Are Car Seats So Poorly Designed?If you want parents to use public transportation, first you have to fix the car seat.
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05.21.11: Alexandra Lange
Vicarious Thrifting, via TwitterOn the lively, effective and erudite thrifting community on Twitter.
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05.10.11: Julie Lasky
Chandigarh to Create Inventory of Corbu/Jeanneret FurnitureA committee convened by the government of Chandigarh, India, is assessing the value of site-specific furniture pieces designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret a half-century ago.
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04.12.11: Alexandra Lange
All That Glitters (and Swoops)What reviews of aberrant design and Van Cleef diamonds have in common: the death of the design show.
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03.14.11: Phil Patton
Just My TypewriterCommemorating the IBM Selectric, which turns 50 this year.
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01.27.11: Alexandra Lange
Objects Fall From the SkyWhat's more important: crediting a designer or the designer credited?
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01.10.11: Alexandra Lange
Is No the Answer?Bag bans, yes. But why is no plastic the answer?
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01.07.11: Julie Lasky
Index Names Design Challenge FinalistsAmong the seven projects dedicated to schoolchildren are educational games, classroom furniture and products that support comfort and hygiene.
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12.10.10: Nancy Levinson
Pillow CultureBeyond sleep: the exhibition Pillow Culture looks at the pillow as designed object and technological artifact.
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12.06.10: Alexandra Lange
Little BoxesAMAC Plastic Boxes are back at the Container Store: a rainbow classic sold at Design Research, part of the MoMA design collection, and starting at $0.39.
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11.15.10: Alexandra Lange
You Have to Pay for the Public DesignDoes a preference for design for private consumption threaten our public space?
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11.05.10: Alexandra Lange
GourmetLive: The Architecture of FoodNow that we know we produce too much waste, now that aesthetics are suspect, now that we must compost or perish, how do design and architecture retool themselves for less, or better, or tastier consumption?
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10.26.10: Alexandra Lange
What I Would Have Bought in SwedenWhile the Swedish modern architecture we saw ran to blank surfaces of stone, glass and stucco, every store was bursting with color and pattern.
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10.01.10: Alexandra Lange
In T: The ZootopianIn early August I had the pleasure of traveling (by plane, train, local train and subway) to Sonneberg, Germany to interview toy designer Renate Müller.
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09.28.10: Mark Lamster
Dishing on Design ResearchAs a kid in 70s-era New York, I wasn’t especially attuned to home decor. But there was one thing I did notice: virtually all of my friends’ parents had the same tableware.
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09.17.10: Steven Heller
Heller on HellerVignelli Celebration: Steven Heller talks about the redemptive qualities of having the same name as Vignelli's Hellerware.
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09.08.10: Alexandra Lange
In Dwell: Hands Off the IconsIn the October 2010 issue of Dwell, which celebrates the magazine’s tenth anniversary by revisiting its own (generally happy) homeowners, I offer the following Argument.
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07.01.10: Alexandra Lange
Fix the Car SeatHaving just returned from a vacation where the logistics of the car seat were a primary part of trip planning, I have a plea on behalf of all parents, and a challenge for industrial and car designers: FIX THE CAR SEAT.
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05.27.10: Ernest Beck
New Meaning at ICFFA review of the 2010 International Contemporary Furniture Fair.
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05.21.10: Alexandra Lange
On Fast Company: Why Do Designer Toys Suck?Spare me the good-looking trophy toys. I’ll take an operational plastic garbage truck any day.
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05.21.10: Alexandra Lange
Why do Most Designer Toys Suck so Badly?Though they exude an organized playfullness, designer toys are rarely as practical as they look.
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05.07.10: Alexandra Lange
On Archpaper: Saccharine DesignMy review of Marcel Wanders’ exhibition Daydreams at the Philadelphia Museum of Art for The Architect’s Newspaper just went online and let’s just say I was not impressed.
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05.02.10: Alexandra Lange
Please Stop ColoringI was exasperated when I saw the new citrus Hans Wegner wishbone chairs.
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04.22.10: Alexandra Lange
Fischer Price AirportI bought this from Ebay for my son for Christmas — the toy my friend had that I always wanted to take home with me.
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01.28.10: Alexandra Lange
The Mysteries of RetailI don’t spend more than $100 easily and certainly not for something breakable, without function, or something for my kid that costs more than anything I own.
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01.13.10: Alexandra Lange
InappropriationThis Urchin Pouf is an expensive contemporary design object I truly adore, hence my shock at seeing an extremely cheap version in the new CB2 catalog.
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01.06.10: Mark Lamster
Ralph Rapson: Forgotten Hero of Design MerchIf you're familiar with Cambridge, or just Harvard Square, you probably know Ben Thompson's wonderful Design Research building, now celebrating its 40th anniversary.
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12.03.09: Alexandra Lange
Making Kids Modern: Or is it Their Moms?An informal experiement aims to determine whether or not kids have an interest in the likes of Alexander Calder or Alexander Girard.
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10.03.09: Alexandra Lange
White KnightWith the opening of Less and More, the new exhibition of Dieter Rams' work, I'm reminded of how frustrating it is that his past work is not in production.
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09.10.09: Dmitri Siegel
Lost In the SupermarketDmitri Siegel gets lost in the Supermarket and encounters incredibly grippy toothbushes, spouts, nozzles, Thorstein Veblen and Adolf Loos.
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07.10.09: Alexandra Lange
Sitting PrettyDesign Within Reach is selling a reissue of a Jens Risom chair for $1100.
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05.10.09: Ernest Beck
Olive Drab: BKLYN DESIGNS 2009Ernest Beck reviews Brooklyn Designs 2009.
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04.27.09: Julie Lasky
Back to the GardenReport by Julie Lasky about the 2009 International Furniture Fair in Milan.
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01.06.09: Murray Moss
Design Hates a Depression"Design tends to thrive in hard times," says The New York Times's Michael Cannell. No, it doesn't. It tends to suffer.
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11.03.08: Andrew Blauvelt
Towards Relational DesignIs there any overarching philosophy or connective thread that joins so many of today’s most interesting and increasingly diverse designs from the fields of architecture, graphic, and product design? I believe we are in the a third major phase in modern design history, moving towards an era dominated by relationally-based design activities.
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09.30.08: Adam Harrison Levy
The Inventor of the Cowboy ShirtA few years ago, I found myself lost inside a shopping mall with Jack A. Weil, better known as Jack A, the man who, in 1946, invented the snap-buttoned cowboy shirt.
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07.07.08: Randy Nakamura
Steampunk'd, Or Humbug by DesignIn this time of cultural recycling, Humbug is a word perhaps best used to describe Steampunk, a subculture supposedly born out of a mash-up of DIY (do-it-yourself), Victoriana, punk, science fiction, Japanese anime and the urge to re-skin one’s computer as 19th century bric-a-brac. If the number of recent articles in the mainstream press is any reliable barometer, Steampunk is the next big thing.
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06.16.08: Ettore Sottsass
When I Was a Very Small BoyEttore Sottsass: "Everything we did was entirely absorbed in the act of doing it, in wanting to do it, and everything we did stayed ultimately inside a single extraordinary sphere of life. The design was life itself, it was the day from dawn till dusk, it was the waiting during the night..."
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05.13.08: Michael Bierut
FittingCharles Brannock only invented one thing in his life: that metal thing in shoe stores that the salesman uses to measure your feet. Is it the most perfect invention of the 20th century?
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04.21.08: Allan Chochinov
"Ode To My Toaster"Ode To My Toaster, a poem by Allan Chochinov.
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10.28.07: Rob Walker
Timeless ObjectWhat makes a useless-seeming watch potentially more valuable — in identity terms — than, say, regular jewelry?
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08.26.07: Alice Twemlow
Design Criticism's Winding RoadTo 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.
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08.23.07: Jessica Helfand
Another Myth Brilliantly DebunkedThe 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...
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08.20.07: David Stairs
Why Design Won't Save the WorldAfter ten months in Africa, I recently visited the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum to see Design for the Other 90%. Here, I thought, was an exhibition I could enthusiastically embrace. Unfortunately...
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04.25.07: Thomas de Monchaux
What If Apple Is Bad for Design?Every commentary on the ubiquity of the iPod, or on the divertingly near prospect of the Apple iPhone, seems to emphasize that what distinguishes Apple is something called "Design." Design, or a particular understanding of it, has been good for Apple. But is Apple good for design? What if the answer is no?
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03.14.07: Jessica Helfand
Art Director KenArt Director Ken is is a charmed, if mildly cautionary tale, for it brings to mind the potentially superficial nature in which we judge a person, an identity — indeed, an entire profession.
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10.22.06: Jessica Helfand
My Cup Holder Runneth OverWhen we're not hiding behind our nail-technician-primed hands, drinking our barrista-blended beverages, IMing, text-messaging, and push-button withdrawing more money from the ATM to pay for all of these things, who are we?
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10.19.06: David Stairs
Charles Eames Among the BullrushesWhat interests me is the tendency for even uneducated Ugandans to observe and learn from their surrounding world, a fundamental hallmark of design thinking.
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07.31.06: William Drenttel
Dangerous Beauty: The Art of the ShivA shiv is a weapon crafted from the limited resources of a prisoner's closed world. Crudely constructed from such things as spoons, shoelaces and upholstery tacks, shivs are about masked utility: it's an innocuous object with improbably toxic intent (whether used to attack others or to protect oneself...).
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06.29.06: Jessica Helfand
Crafting All The Way To The BankCraft is a tricky word. When we feel ourselves pulled in by the unforgiving vortex of digitized everything, we plead for craft, throwing it out like a life preserver — a desperate appeal to the forgotten soul. In those moments, it becomes a metaphor for a kind of imperiled humanity. But what about craft, we ask?
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02.05.06: Jessica Helfand
Separated at Birth: Method? Or Madness?Karim Rashid's method© cleaner is strikingly similar to that of a discount depot: coincidental congruousness?
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11.20.05: Michael Bierut
Innovation is the New BlackInnovation is the latest buzzword to overtake the design profession. What does it mean?
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10.09.05: Alexandra Lange
Married with TchotchkesFor many design-obsessed couples registering at Moss requires more strategy than playing the stock market.
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06.16.05: Rick Poynor
In Memoriam: My Manual TypewriterThe fully evolved typewriter is a 20th-century industrial archetype. It feels inevitable, almost elemental, like one of those object types, such as a chair or a fork, that simply had to exist in this universe of forms.
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04.26.05: Adrian Shaughnessy
The Designer as BuffoonThe "Designer as Buffoon" phenomenon can be seen in two big-budget, prime-time advertising campaigns currently showing on British television. Both Ford and Ikea are promoting their respective products by offering us pumped-up caricatures of designers and inviting us to guffaw at them.
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04.03.05: Michael Bierut
Homage to the SquaresThe Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum's exhibition Design is not Art provides a useful contrast to an simultaneous exhibition of the work of Josef and Anni Albers, and demonstrates differences between art and design.
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02.12.05: Rick Poynor
The Ikea Riot: Unsatisfied Excess?When Ikea threw open the doors of a new store in London, the result was mayhem as customers stampeded. Evidence of social breakdown, or a sign that the utopian argument for low-cost modernist design has been won?
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12.23.04: Jessica Helfand
Code (PMS) BlueHospital rooms are architectural oddities: they're all function with no form. To the extent that, in matters of critical care, timing is everything, why should it matter? Then again, why shouldn't it?
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10.29.04: Rick Poynor
Fear and Loathing at the Design MuseumJames Dyson has accused the Design Museum in London of ruining its reputation with frivolous exhibitions. For many bemused onlookers, his complaints were out of touch with evolving public perceptions of design.
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07.14.04: Michael Bierut
To Hell with the Simple Paper ClipAnswering the question "What's your favorite designed object?" with something humble and anonymous may be a tiresome cliche, but it's one that resonates with editors of the New York Times Magazine and curators at the Museum of Modern Art.
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