Topic

White Space

A collection of 150 issues

Is the new iPhone video sexist?

Disclaimer: This is my blog and I’ll bitch and whine if I want to. I watched the new iPhone video last for the first time last week and paused for a moment after it ended, wondering if there were any women on the team that built it. “Where are

A design credo in seven words.

I took a few students on a quick field trip to MoMA on Saturday. I have a rule. The MoMA Rule. It states that I cannot leave the museum without at least one new design book. Photos by Callie Neylan Since I’m planning on designing a chair with my

Kicking and screaming.

Up the stairs. I need to print this damn thing. Need to print it. Sign it. Lick it. Send it. Need to get it off the teuxdeux. I have so much teuxdeux. That’s when you come in, you sad little beast. You promised to work when I need you

Slow Design.

In the course of my design career, I have met many people who simply do not understand what it takes to create good design. They don’t understand that visual solutions cannot be forced. They don’t understand that sometimes, no, I can’t “design faster”. They ask ignorant questions,

Square one.

I have no idea what I’m doing. But that’s the fun part. One of the main reasons I took this new teaching gig was because of the opportunity I have to start a design lab. I worked for about 10 years as a visual/interaction designer in industry

Thoughts on the beauty of interaction design.

I finished Sam Shepard's latest book this weekend and started Consequential Strangers this morning before getting out of bed. I came downstairs into the kitchen, where I've had these comments about snow and beer posted for a couple of months on my freshly-painted blackboard wall. And

"Critique" is a long-form verb.

In this article on The Importance of Critical Thinking, Lane Wallace talks about factors that affect reasonable, productive discourse: In my experience, there are two factors that seem to make the biggest difference as to whether or not two people can have a meaningful and productive discussion from different points

I want new letters.

The fact that graduate design programs bestow upon their students the MFA (Master of Fine Arts) degree is antiquated and irrelevant. Instead, the design discipline should have its own standardized classification of academic distinction, as programs at IIT, Cincinnati, and Carnegie Mellon do: a Master's of Design. And

The Secret Life of My Passwords

In 2012, it dawned on me that I had lived on the East Coast for four years. My promise to myself was that I would return to Seattle after five years. We had a beautiful house in Baltimore and life was very comfortable, even though I had a love/hate

For the laid-off designer.

Luckily, my job has not yet been affected by this nightmare that is our current economy; I count myself very fortunate to be among the still-employed (knock on wood, or fake wood stickers, as the case may be). But for those of you who have been shit-canned, here’s something