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Gold Below the Fold
Where do design blogs go when they die (besides Facebook or Twitter)? Over the past several months, my research assistant Jessica Miller and I have been scrolling through archives to identify specific types of design blog content. This has not been a search for posts with sexy titles or award-winning authors. Instead, it’s a hunt for needles […]
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And Call It Design Writing
The name *design writing* is one that puzzles me. The Design History Society describes it as the “work of critical debate in design through writing.” Often, though, the waters are muddied when design writing is used interchangeably with design criticism, which Massimo Vignelli tells us is “creative interpretations of the work, period or theory being analyzed.” Not all design […]
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C’mon Over to My URL
In the early 2000s, the DSL lines were buzzing with traffic to pioneer design blogs like Design Observer and Speak Up. These were places to go without ever leaving my desk. Or sofa. Everyone seemed to know so much. Some people expressed humor while others cast shadows of doubt or murmured support. For every thought shared, just as many […]
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Noise and Subjectivities
What role does noise have in the historiography of design? In her book The Universe and the Teacup, science writer and radio commenter K.C. Cole wrote “one person’s data is another person’s noise.” Famously, in Silence, avant-garde composer John Cage tells us that noise is simply sound (or media) to which we are unaccustomed. Noise is anything […]
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Design Writing Out of Sight
I began this project nearly six years ago when I searched for written design conversations. There’s no lack of material. My archive grows with design-centered editorials, letters to editors, website comments, and social media snapshots. But these glimpses of design history aren’t so easy to locate. This patchwork of civic-oriented multilogues is generally well-concealed from search algorithms […]
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Jessica Barness 