David Stairs
Classic tubular chrome “Barbershop” lounge chair
The design history course I’ve taught for nearly 30 years has been referred to as “the chair class.” That has a lot to do with our species’ need to work and relax in a seated position,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Driving back from three weeks out west I was struck by how hysterical the society we’ve built for ourselves has become. This was my 28th continental crossing. I moved to Michigan thirty years ago, and have made an annual pilgrimage back to Oregon to see family and check on property there ever since…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
The irony about reality television is how incredibly over-produced most of it is. I mean, the conceit is that this medium is supposed to provide candid insight into human nature, but much of it is about as “normal” as a choreographed fight on Jerry Springer used to be…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Main cast members of The Summer I Turned Pretty
Have you ever thought about how much attention is focused on teens? I don’t mean as a target market. Anyone can make vague statements about “youth culture” and its purchasing power…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Pedro Pascal dancing through the new Spike Jonez AirPods4 commercial
America is dance crazy.
Before there was Dancing With the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance, or World Dance, Americans got their dose of dancing from Fred Astaire or Busby Berkeley musicals…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
The new chest shield for superheroes
Babble of the talking heads has it that last week Josh Allen, the quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, signed a six-year extension for $330,000,000. Allen was a 7th round pick in 2018 who has since worked wonders for his team…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
It’s funny how we tell time. Some people can place where they were on November 22nd, 1963 or September 11th, 2001, but I think many of us are more influenced by media events. Who can forget the 159th episode of Seinfeld,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Professor Irwin Corey (1915-2017)
Determining who was the world’s greatest authority used to be easy. It was Irwin Eli Cohen, aka Professor Irwin Corey, and he told us so.
Corey, who died in 2017 at age 102,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
In 1961 Hannah Arendt was hired by the New Yorker to travel to Jerusalem and report on the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann had been apprehended by the Israeli intelligence service the previous year in Argentina and abducted to Israel to stand trial for war crimes…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
The games of the 33rd Olympiad are in the books, or, awaiting the outcome of Jordan Chiles’ bronze, nearly so. The bump in world airline travel, television ad revenue, and croissant sales has ended, with the geographic center shifting to the Western hemisphere and yet another L.A…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Gaza, before……
With pro-Palestinian sit-ins criss-crossing the nations’ campuses at the end of the ’23-’24 academic year, it seemed like maybe the message about Israel’s ongoing genocidal assaults in Gaza was finally sinking in. But a naive and myopic Congress still approved billions in military aid to the Israelis in spite of their onslaught…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Subway foot long churro “Sidekick”
I wonder what makes people want to read about anything?
I mean, if you look casually you can find people holding forth about the most inane topics. There is no lack of fother about Taylor Swift,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
You know how they say a people is defined by what they drink? The British have their stout, Russians vodka, and the French wine. But what about what a people eats?
Of course, Americans would be on pretty thin ice with this one,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs:
I had an inauspicious beginning as a painter.
When I was 10 or 11 years old, I received a paint-by-numbers kit. I set about dutifully filling in the pre-designated spaces with the provided colors, used directly from the bottle— no color mixing— and when I was finished I had something that approximated a bird…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
In the Land of Celebrity, the Expert is King.
It would be difficult to argue that our society is not obsessed with celebrities. From film stars to athletes, politicians to the Pope— and let’s not forget the British Royal Family— in America the Cult of Personality reigns supreme…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Early Bell System ad
In the 1920s, before such things developed a predatory sheen, the advertising world promoted the theme of the man who was on top of the world. Modern, accomplished, wealthy, this contemporary Babbitt looked out the window of his 40th floor office at the world as it lay at his feet,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
I was in Detroit last weekend.
Of all the cities in the realm, Detroit has the best claim of “first in freeways.” The first mile of paved road was laid in Detroit in 1909, just in time for the revolution in transport Henry Ford was planning to visit on the nation…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Did you ever have to “brown bag” your lunch? If so, you know about the things that can go wrong, from torn bag to sogged-out paper from a leaky drink container…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Load your Potato Guns boys ’n girls!
Yogi Berra once said, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.”
Back in the days when Trump was the undisputed Twitter Queen, I never thought we’d be free of his unhinged rantings…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
There are two treats I remember from childhood, and they were both manufactured by Sunshine Bakers: Cheez-Its, and Hydrox. Cheez-Its are still around in many updated variations, now a Kellogg’s brand. Hydrox dropped from sight for awhile,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Quannah Chasinghorse by Nathaniel Goldberg; Emily Ratajkowski from Instagram
A recent article in Elle Magazine online by Terese Marie Mailhot (Photographed by Nathaniel Goldberg and Styled By Alex White) introduces us to Quannah Chasinghorse, a nineteen-year-old native American runway model of Ha?n Gwich’in and Sicangu Oglala Lakota descent…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
The only good use I’ve ever found for disposable diapers, a 1976 poster. (Note the pins I added. Talk about double-entendre!)
I know I’m supposed to say that prize-winning financially successful ideas are examples of great design,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Dick Clark at the Moulin Rouge by David Stairs
In a land governed by capital, it comes as no surprise that so much value is attached to celebrity. One of the first great modern personalities,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
While China installs a nationwide video surveillance system, people in the West fret about the potential damage to their privacy by CTV cameras. But, apart from high profile failures, like Toronto’s “smart city” project, we’ve actually been normalizing surveillance for decades…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Another day, another mass shooting. We’re led to believe by television that Mayhem is a guy in a suit, played by actor Dean Winters, who causes mass upheaval wherever he goes. If only it were that simple…. Continue Reading →
© 2026 Design Altruism Project — Powered by WordPress
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
