David Stairs
Designers are such pragmatists.
Look at any form of commercial online instruction platform and you will be underwhelmed by volume of courses meant to help people improve their marketability. Whether you are obsessing over the need to improve your design skills through LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Title wall of the exhibition 5°F
Gordon Lightfoot had a song on Summer Side of Life entitled “10 Degrees and Getting Colder.” That record is now over 50 years old, and things have changed dramatically since it was released…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
The only guns this cowboy ever owned
What could be more dimwitted, un-insightful, or self-serving than a strict interpretation of the Second Amendment?… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Every three years I am tasked with guiding a group of senior design students through their capstone year. Once upon a time it was enough to mount a student’s portfolio for public exhibition, and this process can still be seen at end-of-year design exhibitions across the country…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
There are a lot of people criticizing techno-capitalism these days, those so-called social pariahs demonstrating for economic “justice” and “equity.” But surely, these things are not givens in a free enterprise economy. They have generally needed the assistance of government regulation…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Illustration by Chris Stairs, age 9
I often think about stubbornness. My son Chris is a Leo, and he can be one of the most stubborn people I know. This is not to criticize my son, or to implicate all Leos,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Affluence isn’t free.
Giraffes at a gallop on the Serengeti, Tanzania
In May 2019 the UN released a report about the state of the natural world. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services reported that species are going extinct at an unprecedented rate,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
The editors of MIT Press and Design Observer have compiled a collection of essays to celebrate that weblog’s 15th anniversary. Culture Is Not Always Popular sports the same title as the presentation Jessica Helfand and William Drenttel made at the 2003 AIGA Power of Design conference in Vancouver B.C.,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
In 2014 my program hosted a campus visit by the popular and likeable Stefan Sagmeister. Since I made the arrangements for his talk, and chauffered him from and back to the airport, we had plenty of time to visit…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
It’s seemingly on every designer’s mind these days. No, not sex (although that might be a close second) but social design. How did a matter of collective conscience come to rival primordial drives?
Not long ago only cranks and fuzzy-headed idealists were talking about social design…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Homo faber, humankind the maker, seems destined to design itself right out of a world.
MacGyver packin’
Unlike pharmacology, or agriculture, technology has a weak review process for testing its effects on the natural environment. We have user testing,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
As a person who answers a lot of mail inquiring about socially responsible design internship options, a recent Skype conversation with some grad architecture students at Ball State University got me to dusting off some serious criticism of the “faux humanitarianism” of do-gooder design…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
An admission of personal weakness is not always a bad way to start a new year. I’m willing to stick my neck out and tell you a secret: I’m an inveterate maker of lists.
I can’t shop for food without using a list…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
What can be considered radical anymore?
In their day, Vikings were pretty radical
Used to be this was easy to answer. Back in the ’60s we had Abbie Hoffman and Students for a Democratic Society, and Angela Davis and the Black Panthers…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Young boys on the beach in Allepay, Kerala, India
Designers are frequently talking about skills and aesthetics, practice and theory, and these are important topics. But when it comes to politics, man can they get it wrong!… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
“Indeed, staying silent on explicit religious topics while oozing a Jesus-y pheromone has allowed Invisible Children to tap an entire spectrum of Christian charities, philanthropists, and celebrities, from the most liberal to the most conservative.”
—Josh Kron,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
I’ve been writing about altruism at this blog for so long it all begins to blend together. My inaugural essay spoke about the biological/memetic basis for altruism. The year before I had published an essay at Design Issues that was a prelude to D-A-P…. 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 →
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