Design
New essay: The Lesson I Learned At Summer Camp
My new essay on growing up on a summer camp, design fiction, and imagination.
SALT
How an identity project from 2011 changed the course of my work.
Writing Your Way (Back) Into Design
Thinking about an era of paper architecture and the trajectory of my own work.
The Aesthetics of Political Ideologies
A few links connecting design, media, and politics.
Looking for Literary Design Criticism
I want more design writing that is experimental and ambitious.
Design Against Design is a Monograph of Ideas
Thinking about Kevin Lo’s new essay collection as a model for a new type of design book.
The RSVP Cycles
On Lawrence Halprin’s creative processes in the human environment.
A love letter to HTML
My latest essay for Untapped is a love letter to the open web.
Emilio Ambasz and the Universitas Project
A quick celebration of an under-appreciated design education initiative.
Notes on Visiting Disney World
A designer visits Disney for the first time.
What It Means To Be a Designer Today
My new book, co-edited with Liz Stinson, is now available for preorder.
Return to Form
Documenting shifts in my design education and teaching.
2023 Year in Review
A look back and a look ahead.
My new book! Where Must Design Go Next?
My new book is out now, produced by the Institute of Design and published by Oro Editions.
The Shearing Layers of Graphic Design Education
Thinking about the adaptibility of Stewart Brand's famous diagram
Design Camp
An origin story of sorts.
Maybe I still like design?
How Paul Sahre’s 2017 memoir/monograph reminded me what it was like to love design.
No Finish Line and the ghosts of McLuhan
Why a new publication from Nike appropriates the visual style of Marshall McLuhan's famous book.
Revisiting Lost
Rewatching a television show ten years later and remembering an old school project.
2022 Year in Review
Reflecting on the past year and looking towards the future.
The Vapidity of Design PR
Why is it so hard to talk about ourselves without sounding shallow?
More on design thinking (and the value of blogging)
A few more thoughts (and responses) to my recent post on design thinking.
What if design isn’t problem solving?
A few thoughts on design thinking, cultural invention, and why corporate America broke up with design.
Andrew Blauvelt is the best example of designer as author
On writing the biography for this year's AIGA Medalist.
Design Journalism is the First Draft of Design History
Reading Herbert Muschamp's essays in 2022 is like reading history being written.
2021 Year in Review
Reflecting on the year and looking ahead.
Websites as time capsules
On realizing my website is my longest-running design project.
A few unordered thoughts on design school critique
How does critique evolve in a constantly changing design field?
Five Years and 200 Episodes of Scratching the Surface
Thinking about how my podcast evolved over the last half-decade.
Expansive Bodies: Design, Expanded Practice, and Administration at Het Nieuwe Instituut
Two recent episodes of Scratching the Surface look inside this polymorphic cultural center.
Reconsidering Cranbrook's legacy and writing opening paragraphs
My latest story for Eye on Design is about the influence of Cranbrook's graphic design program.
New Essay: Dot Dot Dot Is The Most Influential Design Magazine You’ve Never Heard Of
My latest story for Eye on Design is about the influence of one of my favorite design publications.
A proposal for a new type of design education
A few thoughts on rethinking the relationship between design education and industry.
Kurt Andersen looks at how America was designed
Fantasyland and Evil Geniuses are books about American history but they are also books about design.
New Essay: On design criticism and the expanding nature of design
For Eye on Design, I wrote about the state of design criticism and how the field has gotten grown and gotten more complex.
The End of the Designer-Genius
The myth of the sole creative genius has allowed bad behavior to persist for too long.
Creating new design histories
Where history is often used to define and defend, let’s use design history to open up, to blur, to democratize.
Netflix keeps design ‘Abstract’
The design docuseries wants to show you cool images but doesn't have much to say.
A *New* Program for Graphic Design
David Reinfurt's A *New* Program for Graphic Design both simplifies and expands what graphic design can be.
Tourist/Purist
The mid-career retrospective on the multi-disciplinary creative director reveals the portrait of a new type of designer
A Design Writing Reading List
A selection of readings from the design writing class I recently taught at Pratt.
Re-examining the Bauhaus
The famous German school's centennial lets us re-examine the history we thought we knew.
Culture Is Not Always Popular: 15 years of (reading) Design Observer
On reading Design Observer for fifteen years and working on a new book
Celebrity designers, context collapse, and rethinking how we teach design history
Design as an Attitude
The design critic Alice Rawthorne's new book attempts to create a roadmap for the future of design.
Introducing twenty-six design!
I'm launching a design studio!
Long Live the Web!
Why I still just love HTML and CSS
On Monographs
What is the point of publishing a monograph?
Experimental Jetset’s Statement and Counter-Statement
The new monograph from Experimental Jetset plays with the form.
