News from Elsewhere

As we wrapped up design on our inaugural issue of Observer Quarterly and got ready to announce a new book project next week, Design Observer talked type (and its overabundance?) and the $10 bill (on the latest episode of The Observatory). Rick Poynor meditated on Gordon Parks' photo series "A Man Becomes Invisible" and Ava Kofman dons the headgear in a visit to virtual worlds.

We were also:

Intrigued by what Harvard's Jeffrey Shcnapp and architect Greg Lynn are up to here.

Thinking about Dune, Frank Herbert's genre-changing sci-fi novel, which is fifty years old this year. Novelist Hari Kunzru writes about its significance for the Guardian.

Reading Design Observer alum Mark Lamster on demolition and preservation (and art) in Marfa, Texas.

Thirsty.

Thrifting for art's sake in Brooklyn.

Road tripping in California (in 1915)—along the aqueducts that made water in Southern California a reality.

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Next week on the site: an Observers column from Sara Jamshidi, a new episode of (in)Fringe, and a new Three Reasons from Bonnie Siegler.

Homepage image from the Los Angeles Aqueduct Road Trip, Huntington Library Archives.

Design Observer was founded by Michael Bierut, and Jessica Helfand.

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Over the course of the last twenty years, we’ve looked at the truncated narrative rhythms of Twitter, unpacked nineteenth century satire in France, climbed Ramparts, skewered Malcolm Gladwell, heralded critical writing, interviewed journalists (and investigative journalists), interviewed editors (and designers-turned-editors), analyzed subversive comics, critiqued newspaper redesigns, shared reflections on Gonzo Journalism and wondered if seeing really was believing.

Entertainment
Design is a natural topic for television. And for movies. And for everything in between, especially now that nearly all of these things are delivered across portable screens.

Humanism
What does design have to do with sadness, or fury? With kindness—or loss? With empathy, and asking better questions? (With honesty, and seeking better answers?) A fundamental tenet of design practice, humanism reminds us that we make things as people, for people: not for audiences, or for metrics, or for users—but for real people.

Science
Like designers in their attention to sentient observation, scientists are trained to ask penetrating questions.

Jobs | November 14