Designer Things

I used to think Pop Art was just about soup cans and celebrity portraits, but then I spent an afternoon at the Tate Modern staring at a Richard Hamilton

I used to think bark cloth was just, you know, primitive fabric. Then I spent three weeks in Tonga watching women transform mulberry bark into ngatu, and

I never thought I’d spend an afternoon squinting at medieval manuscripts trying to figure out why a divorce decree looked like a illuminated wedding invitation.

I used to think political imagery was just propaganda with better fonts. Then I spent three months analyzing revolutionary posters from 1789 to 2019—roughly

The first mental health poster I ever really looked at—I mean really stared at—was in a college counseling center, and it featured a grainy photo of hands

Why Some National Flags Look Like They Were Designed by Committees (Because They Were) I used to think flags were just, you know, pretty rectangles with colors.

I used to think speculative design was just architects sketching impossible buildings. Turns out, it’s something messier—a philosophy that asks us

I used to think age-inclusive fashion was just about making waistbands stretchier. Turns out, the visual language these brands deploy is way more complicated

I used to think carbon neutral branding was just about slapping a green leaf on everything. Turns out, the visual identity systems of companies claiming

I spent three hours last Tuesday staring at a 1,300-year-old clay face that looked more alive than half the NPCs in last year’s biggest game releases.