Digital

The Empathy Economy Is Booming, but What Happens When Our Emotional Connections to Others Are Designed, Packaged, and Sold?

On a Monday afternoon in late fall of 2018, a group of 30 or so adults in various interpretations of…

Digital

The Empathy Economy Is Booming, but What Happens When Our Emotional Connections to Others Are Designed, Packaged, and Sold?

Feelings for sale

Words by
Liz Stinson

Published on
January 27th, 2020

Books

What Weird, Wild + Retro Computer Ad Designs Reveal About Our Ever-shifting Relationship With Technology

It’s always interesting to see how yesterday’s imagined futures compare to today’s realities. At a time when the digital sphere…

Design Diary

Janelle Monae on the Design Observer Podcast, a Handbook for Supporting Neurodiversity in the Creative Industry + More

Also in this week’s Design Diary, our roundup of projects, events, and general design world news, we bring you a…

Profiles

Na Kim on Design as “Found Fiction” Amidst Defined Systems

I like that when I interview designer Na Kim, we’re in a boxy apartment on the fifth floor of a…

Magazines

After the Economic Crisis, Athens’ Tight-knit Zine Scene Flourishes

Set back from the street and nestled in the corner of a central Athenian stoa (a covered arcade), Fotagogos can…

Type Tuesday

A Modern Sans-serif Infused With the Spirit of the NYC Subway

Name: Söhne Designer: Kris Sowersby Foundry: Klim Release Date: December 2019 Backstory: Söhne dates back to the first time Kris…

Editors’ Picks

Digital

Crime-tracking Apps Are Plagued by Ethical Dilemmas—Design to the Rescue?

It’s the middle of the workday in New York City and I’m watching a shaky phone video of a transit…

Design + Art

What Is it About The Simpsons That Designers and Illustrators Can’t Get Enough Of?

Once you start, you can’t help but see them everywhere when it comes to the design and illustration world: the…

Op-ed

Can Fonts Really Help Those With Dyslexia?

As a child, a cat always became a bat. My name was not Maddy but Mubby. Stranger still, a dog…

Design Census

As the Design Industry Moves More Toward Specialization, Education Follows Suit

This story is part of a series that explores the results of the 2019 Design Census. Read the first story,…

Design + Diversity

Let’s Cut the Bullshit—Here’s What it Really Means to Diversify Your Workplace

After my first day interning at a design studio in London one summer, I returned home on the verge of…

Typography

Type Design Is “Cool” Again—and Former Pentagram Designer Margot Lévêque Is Here to Prove It

In a creative landscape awash with maximalism, “acid graphics,” and “ugly design”—all of which I personally love—sometimes you need something…

Design Diary

Design Heavyweights Make Their 2020 Trend Predictions, a Collaborative Poster Project That Unites + More

Also in this week’s Design Diary, our roundup of projects, events, and general design world news, we bring you a…

Design + Gender

We Surveyed Gender Representation at Design Conferences Again—and Not Much Has Changed

Gender hierarchies are deeply entrenched across the design industry, immediately apparent in agencies, universities, museums, and beyond. Last year we…

Poster Picks

Not Just for the French—Why So Many Graphic Designers Took the ’60s New Wave Vibe and Ran With It

In January 1954, François Truffaut famously published a piece in French film magazine Cahiers du Cinema railing against the tired and anachronistic…

Type Tuesday

A Brushstroke-based Variable Font Taken to Its Extreme

Name: Recursive Designer: Stephen Nixon Foundry: Arrow Type Release Date: Beta version is available to download now via Github. Google…

Design + Education

How Can We Teach More Students How to Design With AI?

The fear that automation is replacing actual design skills has been widely debunked. AI is still coming, of course—it’s just…

Eye on Design City Guide: Mumbai

Eye on Design City Guides

Mumbai’s Graphic Design Education Has a Lot of Catching Up To Do

This is the second piece in our series that weighs the pros and cons of living and working in Mumbai’s…

Eye on Design City Guides

Mumbai’s Growing Creative Scene is Luring in Graphic Designers

Following in the footsteps of our London City Guide, this is the first in a new series that weighs the…

Eye on Design City Guides

The Realities of Running a Design Studio in Mumbai

This is the third piece in our series that weighs the pros and cons of living and working in Mumbai’s creative…

Eye on Design City Guides

Being a Mumbai Type Designer is About More Than Great Work—You Gotta Get the Lingos, and There’s Hundreds of Them

This is the third piece in our series that weighs the pros and cons of living and working in Mumbai’s creative…

Design Diary

A Website About Design School Crits, a New Book About the Changes in Design Work + More

Also in this week’s Design Diary, our roundup of projects, events, and general design world news, we bring you a…

Graphic design

Overheard on Design Twitter: No One Pays $1m for Fonts, a Nerdy Kerning Game, Garamond Is Better Than Times New Roman (and Also Sex)

Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who’s the fairest of them all? Why, it’s you silly, Design Twitter! While this week…

Magazines

A Dating App Started an Erotic Literary Journal—and It’s Very, Very Good

We’ve seen it before: tech company launches print publication to build “brand awareness” and position itself as a leader in…

Digital

Finding the Blank Spots in Big Data

Mimi Onuoha is an artist who works mostly with algorithms, data sets, and digital systems, but her best known work…

Type Tuesday

How a Couple of Ed Benguiat Fanboys Got to Relaunch One of the Most Iconic Fonts of the ’60s

Name: Montage Designer: The typeface was originally designed by Ed Benguiat in the 1960s. In late 2019, Montage’s letterforms were…

Design + Art

What Designers Should Know Before Jumping Into Bed With an Artist

In the past decade, the art world has come to embrace technology and design into its hallowed halls. It’s a…

Design + Education

Parsons’ E Roon Kang on Graphic Design as a “Structure for Knowledge”

E Roon Kang lives and works in New York, where he operates the interdisciplinary design and research studio Math Practice,…

Design + Education

Elizabeth Carey Smith on Running the Ultimate “Summer Camp for Type Nerds”

Elizabeth Carey Smith is a creative director whose focus is on furthering the overlap of New York’s type designers, art…

Design + Education

Graduating in Vulnerable Times Calls for Radical Schools—and Students

Rebecca Wright isn’t one to shy away from big questions. As co-founder of the publishing, curation, and design advocacy organization…

Design + Education

What Does “Queering Design Education” Actually Look Like in Practice?

Nicole Killian is an artist and graphic designer whose work “investigates how the structures of the internet, mobile messaging, and…

Design + Education

Design Legend Gail Anderson Answers Your Questions About Where Designers Should Live, Racism in the Workplace + Creating Social Impact

As the 2018 recipient of the Cooper Hewitt’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Gail Anderson (a 2008 AIGA Medalist) has once again…

Design + Education

Elizabeth White on Teaching for the “Whole Student”

Elizabeth White is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. Her work explores “social, psychological, and political themes including maintenance and self-preservation;…

Design + Education

Nontsikelelo Mutiti on Interrogating the Euro-centric Design Canon

Nontsikelelo Mutiti is a Zimbabwe-born interdisciplinary artist and educator who works across fine art, design, and social practice. Mutiti co-founded…

Design Diary

The Illustrator Aligning Sci-fi and Erotica, Solar System-inspired Restaurant Branding, Obby&Jappari’s Nike Designs + More

Also in this week’s Design Diary, our roundup of projects, events, and general design world news, we bring you some…

Digital

A Software Engineer’s Advice for Saving Social Media? Keep It Small

There’s a common refrain on Twitter that can be heard echoing across the feed any time there’s a big news…

Books

The Key to Scoring the “Best Job Ever?” Turn Your Obsession Into Your Profession

Do you remember the exact moment you discovered graphic design? Darren Wall does. A self-described obsessive media consumer, as a…

Typography

Turtles, Tron, and RayForce—Arcade Game MICR Fonts Previewed Our Space Age Future

The cheerful pop-culture visuals of arcade games form a shared lingua franca for players worldwide, meant to guide them through…

Design

How Closely Did You Follow Design News in 2019? Take This Quiz to Find Out

We probably feel like this at the end of every year—knackered, cold, frantically struggling with/ignoring looming deadlines, and manically scanning…

Happy Hour

Weird Wines, Soothing CBD Cider + a Classic Brew Gets a Design Upgrade

You might be all alcohol’d out by now, but that’s not going to stop us from presenting you with some…

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Editors’ Picks

Eye on Design City Guide: Mumbai