Allan Chochinov

It would hard to imagine a more urgent time to have a book debut into the world whose subject was “scale and complex systems.” Neither the Covid-19 pandemic nor the racial justice reckoning was the raison d’être for Jamer Hunt’s outstanding and necessary new book of course, Not to Scale: How the Small Becomes Large, the Large Becomes Unthinkable, and the Unthinkable Becomes Possible, but they provide some pretty extraordinary surface area onto which his ideas will land as you read it, and as the

A Review of “User Friendly,” the new book by Cliff Kuang & Robert Fabricant

Every May, WantedDesign presents a unique program, bringing a group of students from international design schools together to participate in the Design Schools Workshop. Conceived as a collaborative activity rather than a competition, teams are composed of students from different schools and backgrounds. This year, the workshop

Rob’s new book is perfect for designers, design students, and anyone who wants to change their point of view.

Tim Dubitsky has just prototyped “hood.e”, a super-cozy solution to bringing music to your ears without blocking everything else out. The product has a great genesis: Tim originally created the design as a present for his nephew--who walks a dangerous route to school crossing busy thoroughfares--and…

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For her Masters Thesis at the SVA MFA Products of Design program in New York City, Natsuki Hayashi undertook a year-long pursuit to investigate how design could respond and contribute to the increasing legalization of assisted suicide in the United States. In the conversation below, she talks to Allan Chochinov,

An Interview with Jessica Helfand on the upcoming Design Observer Taste Conference

On the occasion of the U.S. launch of his new book, John talks candidly about putting together one of the most optimistic guidebooks for the future

Ric Grefé has been the Executive Director of the AIGA for the past 20 years—an organization that boasts a membership of over 25,000 and has had an enormous influence on the practice of design. After its centennial year—AIGA itself has been around for 100 years—Ric will step down as the

Core-fave Extrapolation Factory has teamed up with The Situation Lab to produce their latest caper; 1-888-FUTURES is a new telephone-based delivery service which allows anyone in the US to request a gift from the future, created to order and shipped to their chosen recipient. The service is a playfu…

And we are not intending a pun in the title at all. The thing is perfect.We were excited to attend the press preview of Airbnb’s new identity last week in Tribeca and have to say that the new marque is pretty brilliant. Co-founder and friend Joe Gebbia kicked off his...

It is with great sadness that we share the news that one of the great contemporary minds of design, Bill Drenttel, has passed away. Bill contributed to design discourse, thought leadership, and progressive action in myriad ways, and was a beacon to so many of us in the design community.Perhaps...

Okay, these can be pricey, but if you find Wendell Castle a bit overwrought, check out Jolyon Yates’ furniture designs, hand made in Northumberland. We asked Jolyon for a bit more info about the pieces, and then asked him if we could paste his comments right here. I have been...

It is with great sadness that we share the news that one of the great contemporary minds of design, Bill Drenttel, has passed away. Bill contributed to design discourse, thought leadership, and progressive action in myriad ways, and was a beacon to so many of us in the design community.Perhaps...

Edwin Schlossberg has long dreamed of building an immense high-tech gaming arena smack in the middle of Times Square where hundreds of people playing together at any given time would control power grids, move investments from one market to another, or build structures that revitalize urban spaces. I…

Last Wednesday night in New York City, I attended what Gary told us was “the first screening of Objectified in front of real, live people.” The room was filled with fans, contributors, well-wishers, and a few designers from the film, and though its official release was at a (packed) SXSW...

This post is part of our year-long series, Apocalypse 2012, where our favorite futurists, resiliency and disaster experts examine the role of design to help you prepare for...the end?We live in dichotomous times, navigating between conflicting imperatives, contradictory values, and eleventh-hour urgency. For designers, these dichotomies—far from providing generative yin/yang...

Back in 2004, I wrote an article called 1000 Words of Advice for Design Students. Flattered that several departments were using the document in their curricula, I followed it up with 1000 Words of Advice for Design Teachers, in 2006 (not used very much in curricula, that one!). For the...

We’re thrilled to announce that an amazing resource for design eduction just went live: Integrating sustainability into design education: The Toolkit. You’ll recall that last October, over 100 design educators and enthusiasts from around the world convened in San Francisco for The Designers Accord G…