Michael Bierut, this year’s winner of the Design Mind award, discusses the state of contemporary design with our National Design Awards winners: Tom Kundig, FAIA; Scott Stowell (OPEN); Ralph Rucci; Lucinda Sanders (OLIN); and Charles Harrison.

This is the first interview in Chapter 3 in my new book, Designing Media Jorge Just, December 2008 While studying history and political science, Jorge fell in love with the public radio program This American Life, so he taught himself to edit audio, moved to Chicago, and applied for an internship with the program. Ira...

This is the second interview in Chapter 3 in my new book, Designing Media Chad Hurley, December 2008 I’m looking forward very much to interviewing Chad Hurley on Thursday March 24th, in one of “Bill’s Design Talks” at the Cooper-Hewitt. When I interviewed him for Designing Media, he started with a large cup of Peet’s...

This is the first interview in Chapter 2 in my new book, Designing Media Jimmy Wales, October 2008 Jimmy Wales founded Wikipedia in 2001, harnessing voluntary contributions from anyone with sufficient interest and time to create the world’s largest encyclopedia. I was surprised that the first email that I received from him was signed Jimbo,...

This is the second in a series of posts about my new book, Designing Media Mark Zuckerberg, November 2009 Mark stares at you from the cover of this week’s Time Magazine with intense green eyes. Here is Time’s accolade: “For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them; for...

Nominations for the 2011 National Design Awards are now open! Conceived by the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt to honor the best in American design, the Awards are now in their twelfth year. This year the nomination process is open to the public for the first time. The categories are Lifetime Achievement, Design Mind, Corporate and Institutional Achievement,...

Felt Lace X-Change 2010-3-1 Company: Studio Structure Designed by Pauline Verbeek-Cowart Woven by The Oriole Mill 2008 Medium: merino wool Technique: fulled double cloth with hand finishing Place made: North Carolina, U.S.A. One of the favorite parts of my job is inspecting all of the new acquisitions coming into the textile collection. Earlier this year...

Pioneers of Change celebrates the blurring of low- and high brow, questioning the difference between the design world and the normal world. How can non-professionals play an intricate role in realizing creative projects? Moderator: Julie Iovine, Executive Editor Architects Newspaper Panelists: Jake Barton, Local Projects Pascale Gatzen, Painted Arne Hendriks, Platform 21 Scott Stowell, Open

Most people go to exhibitions to look at the objects. Eggheads go to read the labels. Design geeks (and museum professionals like myself) want to study the installation itself. How are the platforms and cases constructed? How are the texts laid out? How are supplementary graphics handled? Cooper-Hewitt’s new exhibition Design for a Living World...