Sighted on the Web: Week of August 19
By Tiffany Lambert, Designers & Books August 23, 2013
Stories become structures, McSweeney’s interview with a lampshade maker, Zaha Hadid’s sketchbook, anti-surveillance fashion.
Architect, author, and illustrator Matteo Pericoli’s workshop at Columbia University’s Laboratory of Literary Architecture teams writing students with design students to create architectural models of literary texts. (Photo: The Royal Game by Stefan Zweig. Image by Tony Cenicola/New York Times)
From McSweeney’s, interviews with people who have interesting or unusual jobs. Here, Rachael Burke discusses making lampshades as an apprentice with the famed “lampshade lady,” who authored the book The Lampshade Lady’s Guide to Lighting Up Your Life.
Moleskine’s architecture book series features sketches and handwritten notes by architects such as Zaha Hadid and Giancarlo de Carlo. (Sketch by Zaha Hadid)
Brooklyn-based artist and designer Adam Harvey has created a line of clothing that is invisible to drones. His recent work, Stealth Wear, explores the aesthetics of privacy and the potential for fashion to challenge views on surveillance. The work was prompted when Harvey received a request from an intelligence agency to publish his work in a classified document. Stealth Wear will be on view at a privacy pop-up shop at the New Museum in New York beginning August 28. Other items for sale include the OFF Pocket—a signal-blocking cell phone case— and a redesign of the I Love NY t-shirt, which contains a character-resistant font illegible to the NSA.
Announcements
Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister
Now is Better
By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023
Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
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Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Milton Glaser: POP
By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023
This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.
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Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022
Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)
By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023
This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.
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