PODCAST
Design Observer
by Design Observer
@the-observatory-1: Michael Bierut and Jessica Helfand on design, current events, and current enthusiasms.@designmatters with Debbie Millman: thought-provoking conversations with industry-leading graphic designers, change agents, artists, writers, and educators.
Episodes
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Jonathan Jackson and Avalon Garrick: Time for Change
Jonathan Jackson, Creative Director at We Should Do It All, and design student Avalon Garrick talk about the joys and challenges of finding their footing as creatives, the experience of being the only Black person in the room, and how the design field can be made more diverse.
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Eddie Opara and Tyriq Moore: How Do You Build Knowledge as a Designer?
Gaining knowledge is a crucial, ongoing part of every designer’s career. In this episode, Pentagram partner Eddie Opara, mentor to student Tyriq Moore, talks with him about how learning and discovering new things is at the heart of being a good designer.
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Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Grace Bonney
Debbie talks to Design*Sponge founder Grace Bonney about her new book on women entrepreneurs and makers and about the necessity and difficulty of change.
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Episode 43: The End Is Near
Campaign fatigue, advertising and viral video, voting technology, intellectualism in the design community, the art of David Pease, the 1986 Mets
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Episode 42: Doors and Perception
Bathroom signs, MBA students, Mozilla and open logo design, The Commissar Vanishes, Masters of Sex
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Episode 41: Memory Loss
The Napalm Girl photo on Facebook, 9/11 out of context, Apple stores and the iPhone 7 launch, the Doctor Strangelove trailer, Wiener-Dog, Pantsuit
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Episode 40: Food for Thought
Samsung v. Apple, the International Style v. capitalism, Sausage Party, mozzarella sticks
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Episode 39: Passing the Torch
Olympics, cursive handwriting, NASA’s secret art studio, gun sales on Facebook, #firstsevenjobs
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Episode 38: Rough Sketches
Trump-Pence, Clinton-Kaine, Black Lives Matter, The Four Seasons, mapping the brain, the video essay
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Episode 37: Border Control
Brexit, borders, naming, Fiorello La Guardia and his airport, robot dogs, though leadership, Snapfax
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Episode 36: A Seat at the Table
Why we need a U.S. Secretary of Design, Yale SOM, Emma Cline’s The Girls, Holy Hell, Silicon Valley
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Episode 35: Mind-Body Problems
Nutrition Facts, Mark Bittman’s food rating system, colon cancer screening, Time Well Spent, Peter Arno, Flat File
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Episode 34: The Good, the Flat, and the Ugly
Instagram, rainbows, digital brutalism, Design: The Invention of Desire, the Freewrite,
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Episode 33: Prisons and Paradise
Solitary confinement, virtual reality, design thinking for prisoners, Drew Hodges’s Broadway, The Paradise, Prince’s unpronounceable glyph
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Episode 32: High Maintenance
Innovators and maintainers, Bernie and Hillary, mapping and infrastructure, algorithms and Rembrandt
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Episode 31: Shapes and Japes
Corporate design humor from Mic Drop to bland.ly, photoviz, remembering Zaha Hadid
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Episode 30: Crowd Control
Tay, Boaty McBoatface, New Zealand, emoji, and the madness of crowds
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Episode 29: The Logosphere
The Met and the logosphere, designing with scientists, the Clinton-Sanders graphics race
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Episode 28: Magic on the Page
Matthias Buchinger, Beyonce, Mohawk Superfine at 70, Umberto Eco
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Episode 27: Guys and Dolls
Barbie and Rey, food and design, 30 years after the Challenger disaster
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Taste: The Future of Food + Design
Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand talk about Taste: a one-day symposium on design + food, and why you need to be there!
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Episode 26: Working-Class Heroes
British art schools, Bowie, Alan Rickman, the State of the Union, cannabis chocolate
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Episode 25: State of the Chart
Data visualization, The Big Short
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Episode 24: Hello
Michael finally gets an iPhone, the Pirelli calendar, Amy Schumer, design and TV
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Episode 23: Brute Force
Behind the Bataclan, pigeon pathologists, Design Thinking at IBM, the Coke bottle at 100, Michael Gross
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Episode 22: Magnitude
Climate change, Drake’s take on James Turrell, an IKEA horror catalog
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Episode 21: The Opposite of Ugly
Michael Bierut’s monograph, the lost art of album art, ugliness
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Episode 20: Basic Human Needs
IKEA and Facebook efforts for refugees, e-reading, Adrian Frutiger, Phil Patton
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in(Fringe 06): High Noon
A wartime vestige in the air of San Francisco.
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Episode 19: Moving Pictures
Aylan Kurdi, photojournalism, airline posters, early television
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Episode 18: September Issues
Google’s new logo, design thinking, and lessons from Oliver Sacks
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Episode 17: Over the Rainbow
Rainbows, selfie sticks, and the flag of New Zealand
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Episode 16: New Horizons
Visualizing new horizons, from Pluto to Porto
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Episode 15: Places and Faces
Art, nostalgia, and community; Dannemora’s racist escape note; and Rachel Carson for the new $10.
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Episode 14: M Is for a Million Things
Mentioned: Milan, Mario Batali, Michelle Obama, Moshe Safdie, Modernism, MOO (our sponsor), Michael Erard, metaphor design, Macintosh icons, Massimo Vignelli, Material Design (moronic!), metastasis, mapping expectations of the future world against a reality that is myopic.
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Episode 13: Knockout
The latest verbal sparring match between Jessica Helfand and Michael Bierut. Are boxing and photography hipster pleasures? Are they past their prime, or do they have a bright future? Plus: Michael on that time he got punched in the nose.
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Episode 12: 150 Years, 7 Minutes, 6 Seconds
Michael and Jessica discuss the Doomsday Clock, Canada‘s anniversary logo, and Tim Geithner’s infographic challenge for MBA students.
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Episode 11: East Meets West
A trip to San Francisco reminds Jessica that design can mean something very different in technology companies than it did for “classically trained graphic designers of a certain generation,” i.e. her and Michael. “Culturally, what has shifted is that they work in teams and they don't have the…
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(in)Fringe 04: Staying Tuned
A new sonic tour of the Bay Area's fringes. This installment: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz Island
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(in)fringe 03
Silence often demarcates power, while it can also be used as a tool in response. In the case of Bayview that afternoon, silence was a compounded diffusion of many agencies of power, from those who have been silenced to those who have chosen to remain silent. Surrounding a small vivacious street...
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Episode 10: Inside the Lines
Michael Bierut and Jessica Helfand discuss the The Grid, which uses artificial intelligence to design websites, the history of grids, and the unlikely success of coloring books for adults.
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Episode 9: The Inevitable
Michael Bierut and Jessica Helfand talk about death (not taxes): how designers have to think about preventing death and representing death, and whether death is “just another design challenge.” Also, the color blue.
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Episode 8: Land, Rand, Mad Men
Michael Bierut and Jessica Helfand talk about a panel they participated in at "Everything Is Design", the Paul Rand exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, plus the return of Mad Men and the fate of photography giants Kodak and Polaroid.
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(in)Fringe 02: Mare
A few weeks ago we bolted north up the I-80 to check out some sound art being performed inside one of Mare’s old concrete munitions storage magazines leftover from World War II. The Island (which is actually a peninsula), was established in 1852 by the Navy for ship repair, and later grew into…
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Episode 7: Such Watch
Michael Bierut and Jessica Helfand talk about Jonathan Ive, Apple’s senior vice president for design, and the rollout of the Apple Watch. They consider everything from the questionable wisdom of rounded corners to the typography of the WATCH logo.
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Episode 6: FYI We Are Graphic Designers
Michael Bierut and Jessica Helfand talk about graphic designers on screen, inspired by "FYI I’m a Graphic Designer", a supercut by Central St. Martins students Ellen Mercer and Lucy Streule. They also talk about highlights from Design Observer’s What Design Sounds Like symposium, and Michael’s…
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(in)Fringe: Sounds of the New Mission
A new series of audio explorations of the Bay Area by Nick Sowers and Bryan Finoki.
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Episode 5: Words, Pictures, Sounds
Michael Bierut and Jessica Helfand look ahead to Design Observer’s "What Design Sounds Like", a one-day symposium in New York on February 21st, and to "Everything Is Design: The Work of Paul Rand", an exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York that runs from February 25th to July 19th.
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Episode 4: Our Favorite Things
Michael Bierut and Jessica Helfand talks about Jessica's Paris 140 series, and Michael describes his 100 Day Project.
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Episode 3: Dollars and Change
Michael Bierut and Jessica Helfand discuss the midterm election and currency design. Plus Jessica imitates a London cabbie, and Michael nails the pronunciation of our sponsor, MailChimp.
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
@the-observatory-1: Michael Bierut and Jessica Helfand on design, current events, and current enthusiasms.@designmatters with Debbie Millman: thought-provoking conversations with industry-leading graphic designers, change agents, artists, writers, and educators.
HOSTED BY
Design Observer
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Design Observer have?
Design Observer currently has 97 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Design Observer about?
@the-observatory-1: Michael Bierut and Jessica Helfand on design, current events, and current enthusiasms.@designmatters with Debbie Millman: thought-provoking conversations with industry-leading graphic designers, change agents, artists, writers, and educators.
How often does Design Observer release new episodes?
Design Observer has 97 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Design Observer?
You can listen to Design Observer on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Design Observer?
Design Observer is created and hosted by Design Observer.
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