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Welcome to Design Observer, a home for curious minds shaping the world. Find your people and new ideas.

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Latest Issues

Let’s talk design and the midterms, live Friday

We’re going live on Friday, Nov. 6, at 9 a.m. PST/11 a.m. CST/noon EST with John Ball, Jessie McGuire, and Justin Wong to chat about political and civic design post-midterms. Three designers who are experts from different angles will join u...

2 days ago

Courthouses are designed to keep us apart

Supreme Court Interior, Washington, D.C. Credit: Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons.

Modern courthouses in the U.S. are designed to keep people apart. In fact, it’s one of their most important features.

All cou...

4 days ago

The professional responsibility that's not in your job description

Rachael Dietkus’s note to self: “The future is a safe place”

Rachael Dietkus’s long, winding list of professional experiences — from design practitioner to human services and beyond — has led her to a clear point of view on how we can make...

11 days ago
2

A design lesson from Major League Baseball

Byron Bancroft “Ban” Johnson (middle) at the 1916 World Series. Source: Library of Congress.

Not long ago, baseball needed to be saved from itself.

By 1900, the 55-year-old sport had become a brawling, corrupt, dangerous mess. It was bese...

18 days ago
1

Who gets to decide where power begins and ends?

We’re sharing two new episodes of the Draw the Line podcast, and this time we’re taking you behind the scenes as voters and lawmakers clashed over voting rights this past spring.

In the days after the Callais ruling, Louisiana’s legislatur...

25 days ago

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  • Design Observer

    Look closer with us, it's all designed.

  • Ellen McGirt

    Editor-in-Chief, Design Observer. I write. I podcast. I draw water drops. I wander.

  • Rachel Paese

    In its various forms, what I love most is giving curious people better access to perspective-changing stories. Now Deputy Editor for Design Observer, I bring readers closer to the people and ideas that are designing a better world.

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