The Most Compelling Character In “Blade Runner 2049?” The UI
Here’s the story behind the film’s spectacular vision of technology. When Blade Runner hit theaters in 1982, it painted a vision of 2019 that was as horrifying as it was artful. Concept designer Syd...
View ArticleNendo Reinvents The Zipper
Zip, zip hooray! Zippers are one of those ubiquitous fasteners that come in lots of different colors, materials, and sizes, but they’re more or less the same: a straight line of interlocking teeth and...
View ArticleThe Future Of Fashion In 5 Wild New Garments
What will we be wearing in 5, 50, or 500 years? It’s all on view at MoMA. Many of the 111 pieces displayed at MoMA’s new Items: Is Fashion Modern? exhibition will be familiar. There are leather biker...
View ArticleCorn Walls And Rice Bricks: Tomorrow’s Cities Will Be Built From Crops
Arup believes the construction industry is ripe for circular economies. Today, pineapple, potatoes, mushrooms, corn, oranges, and bananas are staples of the produce aisle. Tomorrow, they might be the...
View ArticleHow To Build A Brand In An Hour, From The Agency Behind Casper And Birchbox
I tried Red Antler’s Mad Libs-style guidelines for branding–and so can you. When I ride the subway, music keeps my ears busy–but my eyes wander. They often land on subway ads: Banners that promote...
View ArticleWant To Be A Great Designer? Ban Post-It Notes
Take a cue from Work & Co., the digital design agency that does work for Apple, Facebook, Google, and Nike. To Ray Sison, Post-its are the enemy of good ideas. Sison is a design director at Work...
View Article3 Big Ideas Shaping A Design Industry In Flux
“You need to have a ‘Swiss Army knife’ education and way of thinking because the design fields are changing.” What does the future of the design profession hold? According to three judges of this...
View ArticleSweden’s Coolest “Affordable” Furniture Brand Comes To New...
(And it’s not Ikea.) Hem–a Swedish e-commerce brand dedicated to stylish and (somewhat) attainable modern design–finally has a retail storefront in New York. From now until the end of November,...
View ArticleFrom Ideo.org: 3 Ways Designers Can Help Fix The Refugee Crisis
To solve large systemic issues, the social equity nonprofit Ideo.org follows these three steps. According to the United Nations, there are over 65 million forcibly displaced people worldwide. It’s the...
View ArticleThe Women Designers Behind London Tube’s Kickass Graphic Design
A new exhibition sheds light on the women behind London’s best transportation posters. History has a bad memory. Women are footnotes, flat out forgotten, or unfairly robbed of credit until revisions...
View ArticleMeet The Minimlet, Nendo’s Portable Toilet For Disaster Zones
When you gotta go, you gotta go. In disaster zones, the most basic human needs are difficult to meet. Disruptions to infrastructure imperil the distribution of food, energy, water–and sewage. Compared...
View ArticleTech Is Transforming Our Spaces, And We’re Just Beginning To See How
Our smartphones have enabled us to do everything, everywhere–and our physical spaces are changing as a result, according to a comprehensive new survey by the architecture firm Gensler. If you step...
View ArticleInside Italy’s Most Transgressive Design Movement
Half a century ago, Italian designers attempted social revolution through design. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the work emerging from Italian designers looked like visions of an acid trip: sofas...
View ArticleZocdoc Gives The Health Insurance Card A Brilliant Makeover
Misreading your health insurance card could cost you. ZocDoc has a better alternative. Health insurance cards are a mess. Critical information presented in a way that’s not typically intuitive with...
View ArticleThis Photographer Captures The Strange Beauty Of Booming Cities
“I’m particularly drawn to cities with a lot of neutral, nondescript architecture,” Daniel Everett says. Over the decades, cities develop fingerprints through their architecture–the triumphant Beaux...
View ArticleHow Muji, Japan’s Most Famous Anti-Brand, Plans To Win America
Can a brand predicated on nothingness gain a foothold in the U.S.? If you follow the rule book of building a brand or a business, having a clear vision about what you’re selling is essential. Not so...
View ArticleThe Designer Of The Most Iconic Indie Albums Of The ’90s Gets A Book
Vaughan Oliver designed album art for the bands that defined a decade, from the Pixies and the Breeders to the Cocteau Twins. The Breeders’ song “Cannonball,” the lead single from the band’s 1993 album...
View ArticleVisualization: More People Are Biking (And Running!) To Work
A new report from Strava, a social network and app for athletes and commuters, is a glimpse at the way we get around today. One of the easiest ways to combat carbon emissions is to ditch your car and...
View ArticlePantone’s Color Of The Year Is Here, And It’s As Nebulous As 2018...
Terrifying or exciting? Ultra violet could be either. It’s the color Prince crooned about, the color of royals, the color of clairvoyants–and the color Pantone has anointed as the embodiment of the...
View ArticleScientists Are Using Eye-Tracking To Discover How We See Design
Using biometrics, two architectural researchers think they can help architects and planners design better cities. Architects know best, as they often claim. With conviction, they’re sure certain...
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