Design Observer

If you spend enough time on voting rights work, you become more fluent than you ever thought you’d be in legal history, court cases, maps, and the enormously creative, and pretty ugly, ways some people have used to keep others from casting their ballot. In front of a live audience at Essence Fest 2026, Janai Nelson, President and Director- Counsel of the Legal Defense Fund — and the person who argued the Callais case —  talks with Power Coalition CEO Ashley Shelton about how she pr

Instead of hanging at a cookout, a determined group of Black women convened during Essence Fest on July 4 to do something even more American: demand more from their democracy. In this special reporter’s notebook episode, we are presenting an all-star panel as they “spill the tea” about the redistricting fight, the Callais decision, and what it means for Louisiana — and the rest of us. Stay tuned to the end for a special message on what to do if you have any questions about voting. Panelists

Eric Ries would like to apologize. In 2011 he published a book called The Lean Startup. Most of you have probably heard of it. It sold over one million copies and became something of a Bible for the Silicon Valley set. And Eric himself became something of a prophet. The Lean Startup gave a generation of founders a methodology to build quickly, scale quickly, and build value quickly. He encouraged his readers to build businesses to change the world… He forgot to say for the better. An

Dave Fleet sees more corporate crises in a month than many executives see in their entire career. He is the Managing Director and the Head of Global Crisis at Edelman, meaning he helps companies prepare for, and manage through, crises. He is regularly fielding phone calls from people on the worst day of their careers.But his job is also more than that, Dave and his team are fighting disinformation, teaching media literacy and helping businesses proactively build trust with their employees and cl

Linda Hill has been a professor at Harvard Business School for 40 years. Let me say that again… Linda Hill has been a professor at Harvard Business School for FOUR decades. Her specific title is the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration and Faculty Chair of the Leadership Initiative. Oh, and she’s also founded two companies. After nearly half a century teaching Business at one of the best universities in the world…no one has better insight on what it takes to lead acros

Erika James became the Dean of the Wharton School on July 1, 2020. You remember that summer… we were deep into the pandemic and amidst one of the largest social reckonings in American history. So I guess you could say Dean James knows how to lead during a crisis. She even wrote a book about it. Erika and her co-author Lynn Perry Wooten published The Prepared Leader in the fall of 2022. The book breaks down the phases of crisis management and lends some advice on how to make big decisions unde

 Steve Goldbach leads Deloitte’s Sustainability and Infrastructure practice. He believes today’s leaders face an emerging new design challenge: figuring out how the next generation will build real judgment and taste when AI is taking over so much of the work that used to teach it. He’s the co-author, along with his longtime collaborator Geoff Tuff, of three best-selling books on leadership and innovation.  His latest is called Hone: How Purposeful Leaders Defy Drift. In this conve

Chris Hyams spent 15 years at the job search platform Indeed, becoming its CEO in 2019. When he stepped down in 2025, more than 300 million jobseekers visited Indeed’s site every month. He also 200x’d the company’s revenue.  So why would a guy who is so good at what he does step down? According to him, he had a higher calling. Chris believes that AI is the single greatest civil rights issue of our time and he’s appalled it isn’t better regulated. And he’s taking action. Chris is teach

Rachael Dietkus’s long and winding list of professional experiences have led her to a clear path: she knows how we can make the world better. She began as an art and design student, and then pivoted to social work. She’s also taken on multiple advocacy and human rights positions, including joining an effort to abolish the death penalty in Illinois and serving as an NGO delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Council.  Her professional focus emerged while working at the

The image is arresting: a small Black boy, tossed aloft by his father on a perfect Chicago summer beach day. The photo is black and white; the warmth of the other sun wraps them both. The boy is frozen in time, serenely suspended in midair, and the man’s strong hands wait to catch him. Stephen Marc, Untitled, from Changing Chicago, 1988. Gift of Jack A. Jaffe, Focus/Infinity Fund. It’s not a picture of Emmett Till, but it could have been. If only he’d made it home. Thi

The Kardashians are some of the most influential designers of the 21st century. Re-read that sentence. How does it make you feel? Did you crinkle your brow in confusion? Did you bristle in disgust? Did you shiver in fear? It’s a provocative, controversial statement about a provocative, controversial family. Any reaction would be appropriate.  Some clarification: The word “designer” here is not referring to Kim’s shapewear brand Skims or Khloe’s Good American denim brand. It is in r

Sara Soskolne uses the word “micro-nerdery” to describe typeface design. “I think of myself as a craftsperson,” she says.  Soskolne is an Executive Creative Director at Monotype, and for much of the last two decades she has been waist-deep in the Gotham typeface — including many years working with its original designers, Tobias Frere-Jones and Jonathan Hoefler, as senior designer at Hoefler&Co.  After an iconic reputation solidified by Obama’s campaign, SNL, Netflix, and more

If you’re in the business world, you’ve heard of Judy Samuelson. Even if you’re not in the business world, you may have heard of Judy Samuelson. That’s because Judy is one of the most influential voices thinking about and wrestling with the purpose of business in the modern world and how capitalism can be a force for good.  Judy founded the Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Program back in 1998. But perhaps one of her most important contributions is her leadership in the Business Ro

In 1949, Walter and Elizabeth Paepkes invited 2,000 artists, thinkers and business leaders to the abandoned mining town of Aspen, Colorado, for the first iteration of an Aspen Institute gathering. Eight decades later, artists, thinkers and business leaders still convene in Aspen every summer to discuss the challenges and advances shaping our world.  And while their modes of transportation have changed (that first group mostly arrived via horseback), they share a key belief with their pre

It’s been a tough go for newspapers lately. Last week, McClatchy, a national local newspaper chain, announced its most severe cuts in years, eliminating more than 90 journalists and gutting newsrooms by up to 40% for 13 papers in eight states. Affected publications include the Miami Herald, Sacramento Bee, Kansas City Star, Charlotte Observer and Fort Worth Star-Telegram.   You can’t even make the argument that these papers were beloved relics of communities in decline, like the

Ira Blossom, a 35-year-old UX research expert, wants people to spend more time away from the digital worlds he studies and more time with themselves and each other. You bring the pencil, he’ll supply the paper.  Ira Blossom is the founder and editor-in-chief of Sunday Club, a newspaper company committed to bringing community, relaxation, and small delights back to the weekend. To do it, he’s chosen a nostalgic, yet foundering, medium: the newspaper. Sunday Club’s motto: All game

“History Isn’t Just Remembered. It’s Experienced,” reads a pop-up on the Tenderloin Museum’s website. Over the last 11 years, the Tenderloin Museum, located in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, has become known for its unique, community-centered public programming and history-themed arts programs. The Tenderloin has a rich and often misunderstood story: it was home to the first sex workers’ rights protest in the country, the first gay neighborhood in San Francisco, and the start of

It has never made sense to me, why a brand wouldn’t opt for custom type. Working in branding agencies all over London for a lot of my career, I used to sit on the London Tube browsing the series of ads above commuters’ heads. All ads had the same formula: tiny logo in the corner, tick; stock photography, tick. But 50% of the communication — the heavy lifting on messaging — was done by the type. Yet it was always the same fonts, over and over. Often next to each other — I see you, Inter, Roboto,

Kenya Hara (原 研哉), the Japanese graphic designer, curator, and writer, has built an exceptional body of work based on his observations on the power of design. Unlike art, which is an individual expression, design must be done together, and for each other, in part by discovering a question that hasn’t yet been asked. “The essence of design lies in the process of discovering a problem shared by many people and trying to solve it,” he says. It is with this in mind — and with you in mind

Last week, John Ball wrote for Design Observer about his experience designing a poster series for the Smithsonian about one of America’s most contested subjects: immigration. Although the project was in 2012, the Trump administration ordering “inaccurate information” signs outside of the Smithsonian museums brought up old memories and new reflections. Encouraging visitors to sit with complexity was important then, and it’s even more important now, he concludes. “When public debate becomes lou