David Stairs
In Society of the Spectacle Guy Debord attempted to define the interrelationship between government and commodity capitalism. No finer recent example could be found than the 9/11 10th Anniversary commemorative activities that took place around the country this past month…. Continue Reading →
Daniel Drennan ElAwar
In April 2010 I found myself in Montreal for an academic conference. It was my first time there, and as I am wont to do in such a new place, I looked up used bookstores and otherwise roamed around the city…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
This essay was originally published in Speak Up October 26, 2004. It seems just as timely as ever.
Branding. From the pages of Print and Communication Arts to the sessions at the AIGA biennial conference,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
I was over at Design Observer yesterday, reading Rick Poynor’s lament about the depressed state of design criticism. The comments, posted by the usual band of DO nabobs and groupies, were unusually critical. One commentator referred to DO as “a likedy-like NYC mafia,”… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
When it comes to saving the world, I’m a reformed do-gooder. Yet, not a day goes by that I am not reminded of how many people are working mightily to save the world. First and foremost, there are the entrepreneurs,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
It happened in an instant.
One moment I was leaving the school parking lot, the next the ground was close to my face and I could see the EMT’s feet as they worked around me. It was 8:20am Monday May 2…. Continue Reading →
Scott Gerald Shall
Introductions
We sat on the floor in the cramped offices of Espasio Cultural Creativo. The group was an eclectic mix: staff and volunteers from Espasio Cultural Creativo (or ECC, a Bolivian non-profit that runs arts education initiatives on the streets of La Paz and the chief reason we were in Bolivia),… Continue Reading →
Ed. note. This piece recently appeared as 21st Century Ethics for Graphic Designers in Sophie Krier’s anthology I Don’t Know Where I’m Going But I Want To Be There published in December 2010 by BIS
David Stairs
What does it mean to be a citizen designer anyway?… Continue Reading →
Wes Janz
This piece was recently presented at a workshop at Ball State University —Ed.
I. Whose vantage point is privileged when we speak of “the base of the pyramid”? Whose construction of “base” and “pyramid” are we talking about?… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
I never thought I’d get so old that I’d begin to sound like Andy Rooney. What is he, about 95? But I realize now that the infernal buzzing of human electronic communications media has me longing for the quietude Obi-Wan enjoyed in his adobe hut on Tatooine…. Continue Reading →
Victor Margolin and Sylvia Margolin
Americans are witnessing the birth of a new spectator sport – political football. It’s played with two teams – the Democratic Donkeys and the Republican Elephants. The intensity of the competition is similar to regular football but it differs in that the contact is ideological rather than physical…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
On Sunday February 6th I went to my local grocery store to get some canned tomatoes for the dinner I was planning. The place was mobbed. I looked around, half expecting to see the Lord descend in a cloud of glory,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Dear Julie—
I’ve been watching with a mixture of mild horror and benign amusement the recent fascination that Africa engenders in Western design circles. It’s inevitable, I suppose, that that portion of the human world known by the UN as the LDC (Least Developed Countries) would become some sort of 21st century refuge,… Continue Reading →
Victor Margolin
In some parts of the world, taking a taxi or catching a cab is a simple matter. You simply hail a cab on the street, get in, arrive at your destination, and pay the fare indicated on the meter…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
In February of this year my energetic friend Wes Janz mounted the exhibition small architecture/BIGLANDSCAPES at the Swope Museum in Terra Haute. The show was an elaborate combination of image, text, and installation,… Continue Reading →
Victor Margolin
No wonder that American airline passengers are in an uproar. To get on a plane they are obliged to choose between exposing their bodies as x-ray forms or getting patted down and groped by TSA employees. When confronted with the growing passenger rebellion,… Continue Reading →
We don’t do much link relaying here at D-A-P, that’s not our purpose. But I just received this worthy link from College Crunch and think it deserves a plug. Volunteerism on campuses is seemingly at an all time high…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Either we live in the most enlightened era of recorded human history, or the most cynical. I don’t think this statement is contradictory.
Last year when I wrote Arguing With Success I was subsequently taken to task for criticising the very motives among designers I’d been calling for for years…. Continue Reading →
Martin Scriblerus
As the sun comes up on a new day…
Chances are good you know them all by name: Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa, and Po. They live in one of the most completely artificial environments on earth,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Dear Bruce, Following your much-discussed July 7th “reasoned but misinformed volley” about design imperialism on the Fast Company blog, you were practically cut off at the knees for your viewpoint. The folks at Fast Company were probably happy about this,… Continue Reading →
Olon Dotson
This is the second of two special features on the racial history of America’s industrial heartland.
INTRODUCTION: IN MEMORY OF JOHN THADIS DOTSON
Leake County Courthouse, Carthage, MS.
Only one storefront shows signs of activity on the square surrounding the Leake County Courthouse in Carthage,… Continue Reading →
Olon Dotson
—With this posting we are pleased to publish a two-part investigation by African American architect Olon Dotson into the racialized nature of the cities of America’s decayed industrial heartland. We feel this is an important, generally overlooked research,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
I was recently in Austria where I delivered a lecture in Graz during Graz Design Month.
The thing most striking about traveling in Central Europe is the sense of the past preserved. The cities of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire survived WWII better than their German counterparts,… Continue Reading →
We’ve heard from Yetta Aguado who, like Carolina Vallejo, is concerned about South America. Yetta’s project is related to “temporary collective housing (less than 10 persons) for homeless people. The design of the interior spaces and the equipments, in 3 different categories.”… Continue Reading →
Victor Margolin
In recent years the once spontaneous exchange between buyers and sellers has become increasingly mechanized. This has occurred in a number of ways. As one example, the Internet became a prime source of goods and buyers learned to follow standardized protocols to select their merchandise and pay for it…. Continue Reading →
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