Social Good

Rick Poynor|Essays

Remember Picelj

The English-speaking world knows little about the design history of Communist Europe. Few will have heard of the distinguished Slovenian Ivan Picelj. His prints ask us to remember; they are full of yearning.

Rob Walker|Essays

The Guts of a New Machine

The iPod, a digital music player, it weighing just 6.5 ounces and holding about 1,000 songs.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

On Visual Empathy

In a world besieged by unpredictable atrocities, don’t we all feel a little emotionally raw? Two recent articles in suggest that visual empathy may more critical to a productive imagination than we thought.

Rick Poynor|Essays

Those Inward-looking Europeans

Three American design teachers visit London and the Netherlands. European designers, they say, are not paying attention to design history. Maybe the visitors are missing local factors and broader global issues.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Fatal Grandeur

In one of the annotations to my design manifesto, "Me, The Undersigned," I wrote somewhat sarcastically of the seriousness with which some of us view our profession by noting, "Design is probably not going to kill you if it falls on your …

William Drenttel|Essays

Twin (Cities) Type in Flux

An article in late July in The New York Times discusses the new typeface commissioned for the City of Minneapolis by Jan Abrams, director of the University of Minnesota Design Institute, that moves when the wind blows.

John Thackara|Essays

Interior Design at War [April 2003]

Report on design in the war in Afghanistan, the Pearl River Delta in China, the Media Lab Europe (MLE), the 50th anniversary of the German Design Council, New Mobility, and more.