Writing
I’ve written on topics of design, branding and creative employment consistently since 2004, primarily for online magazine Core77, and its sister site Coroflot.
This is a sampling of a few of my favorite articles and posts from the past five years. For a bit more backstory, I’ve also written this long-ish post outlining my experience working with these two remarkable sites.
CORE77.COM
Feature Articles
Not Created Equal: A Long (Loving) Plastics Primer – Respect polymers.
Stepmothers of Invention – Ad agencies have become branding studios, and begun designing their own products. Is that weird? Jon Winsor and Rob Walker both show up in this one, making it one of the most interesting series of interviews I’ve gotten to conduct.
American Design, Anyone? – At the 2004 ICFF, the most innovative furniture came from young American designers, but nobody noticed. Why is that?
A Periodic Table of Form – Contributed by Alias surfacing master Gray Holland, with me editing. A fascinating and rigorous explanation of how surfacing in product design evokes meaning for the consumer.
Blog Posts
NY Times Goes to Renegade Craft Fair, Finds Ironic Cephalopods - June 2007: my first post as a Core77 staff blogger.
Portland’s Top Coffee Roaster Dumps the Clover, and Why This Matters to Product Design – Favorite post about a physical object.
Autodesk puts the fun in your pocket: Introducing Sketchbook Mobile. – Closest I’ve ever gotten to breaking a story. We missed being the first publication to review this insanely cool iPhone app by just a couple of hours, but our post is still on the first page of the Google results.
Design in the Wild, Part 1 and Part 2 – Most devious use of a vacation to generate blog fodder.
Hero Shots, Money Shots and Process Pages: How to present your work visually. – A solid post, but published in truly exceptional company. This was part of Core77’s “Hack 2 Work” feature, and got listed next to submissions by Michael Bierut, Julie Lasky, Tim Brown, Stephen Heller, Linda Tischler, and half a dozen other designers and writers I want to be when I grow up.
Want more? Here’s a nearly comprehensive list of 430 Core77 blog posts from my time as a contributor there.
COROFLOT.COM
Creative Seeds
Questioning the Cult of the Sketch – Some great designers don’t draw that well (surprise!), but we keep expecting them to. Comments are predictably polarized.
Interaction Designers, and How They Got That Way – The first of several attempts at defining a crucial but nebulous field.
Five Things Interaction Design Probably Isn’t – A second attempt, shortly after the 2009 IxDA conference. The comments are good, but the discussion it sparked on the IxDA boards is way better.
Seven Ways to Make Your Business Card Stand Out – Not the deepest post, but inspiring to look at, and lots of fun to research.
Small Pond, Smart Fish: Why Young Designers Should Avoid ‘Design Capitals’ – Most of the great designers I knew in New York started somewhere else. Somewhere boring. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
Questions for Aaron Hayes of Courage Bicycles – Of the dozen or so interview pieces on Creative Seeds, this is probably my favorite: impassioned subject, good stories, and gorgeous photos.
Hiring a Designer is a Deeply Frightening Thing – Sympathy for the client.
The Art of the Money Shot – Guest post from Billy May, with me editing. How to craft a single image that tells the whole story of a product in one view.
Six Reasons Why I Didn’t Look at Your Portfolio – Tough love.