This past Monday, February 3, were the Iowa Democratic caucuses. We are still awaiting a conclusive winner, a week later. Hearing the reporting, like many people, made me frustrated. Not because I wanted to know the who had won, like everyone else, but because I was witnessing a failure that…

We are defined by our ability to use design to shape our understanding, beliefs, and how we see the world. — The myth of design: Fancy chairs The role of design has many interpretations. When we say the word “design,” many images appear in people’s minds. A common one is that of an expensive, perhaps Italian, maybe reductive or ornamental, chair. This interpretation of design is the most troubling and far from the truth: That design exists…

Exploring the parallels between music and design — I’m very happy to hear that my work inspires writers and painters. It’s the most beautiful compliment, the greatest reward. Art should always be an exchange. —Nick Cave In 1994, I saw Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds perform at Lollapalooza for the first time. I was 15. The festival…

Picture, in your mind, the volume of people who live on your block. Is it 20? Is it 100? Maybe it’s 1,000, if you are in a dense part of world. What do 1,000 people look like? What about the population of your city? …

There are two men in a hospital, on opposite sides of a room. They can’t see each other, but they’re close enough to speak. Weeks go by. One man describes a view outside a window to the other: white clouds, blue skies, cardinals flying by. The man listening starts to…

As technology changes and expands, the imagery we use to represent our world loses its meaning — Just as the work of writers relies on the universality of a dictionary, the work of designers depends on a widespread, shared understanding of the meaning of images. To communicate something simple—like a camera, for example—we rely on a shared image of what something that takes pictures looks like. …