Redesigning satellites to be smaller, lighter, and cheaper is turning them into a ‘smartwatch’ for the planet.

The satellite on Joe Latrell’s desk is tiny. It stands shorter than a Gatorade bottle, and at 2.75 pounds weighs less than a small dumbbell. Latrell is the cofounder of Quub, a “data company” that designs and builds small satellites (also known as “smallsats”) that will someday circle Earth, taking the planet’s pulse.

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Alex Hollender led the redesign that launched in January. Here, he walks readers through the entire process.

For the past few years I led the redesign of the Wikipedia desktop interface, which launched this past January. Below are some notes on the project and process.

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Ray and Charles Eames, the legendary industrial designers, are best known for their chairs. But their tables reveal a lot about their design process.

Ray and Charles Eames, the legendary industrial designers, once took their youngest granddaughter out for dinner, where they had borscht. After the meal, Charles asked the eight-year-old how she enjoyed the meal; she said she didn’t like it at all. Without skipping a beat, Eames responded, “How would you have done things differently?”

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An image of the famous sculpture is causing controversy in Florida. In its home of Florence, visitors offer their own opinions: “I don’t understand how you can say it’s porn.”

Visitors flocked to see Michelangelo’s David sculpture in Florence on Tuesday, following an uproar over a Florida school’s decision to force the resignation of the principal over complaints about a lesson featuring the Renaissance masterpiece.

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Logomania was in full force during the pandemic, but a major shift toward a quieter version of luxury is coming.

Recently, taking a stroll through any major city in the world meant floating in a sea of luxury logos.

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McDonald’s latest ad campaign turns the Big Mac into abstract art. Here’s why it’s a savvy move.

If you find yourself zipping past Toronto’s Yonge-Dundas Square, or sprinting through the city’s Union Station, don’t be surprised if you get a sudden craving for McDonald’s.

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SUV design is getting bigger and more aggressive. What does this new era of dystopian design say about us?

Pandemics. War. Economic collapse. Artificial intelligence. Judging by the headlines, humanity’s future looms darker than ever. It comes as no surprise then that fear has become a powerful force in design these days. Nowhere is this aggressively dystopian viewpoint more apparent than in the most macho men industry of them all: automobiles.

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Pepsi launched a new logo and brand system that uses high contrast visuals to sell Zero Sugar products.

It’s the best Pepsi has looked in decades.

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This gorgeous chart illustrates the intricacies of managing one of our nation’s most crucial—and invisible—national assets: the radio spectrum.

Somewhere above you right now, a plane is broadcasting its location, speed, and bearing on 1090 MHz. A geostationary weather satellite 22,000 miles from Earth is transmitting detailed weather maps on 1694.1 MHz. A car driving by your home is transmitting a signal with the pressure readout of one of its tires at 315 MHz. A GPS satellite flying overhead at 8,000 mph is pinging a signal to your phone at 1575.42 MHz. A data buoy bobbing in the Atlantic ocean transmits sea temperature, wave height, and wind speed readings to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite at 401 MHz.

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A new exhibition from Poster House tells the story of modern Japan.

We tend to think of physical posters as ephemeral objects that get pasted up and discarded a few weeks or months after their usefulness. They are not typically the type of thing that would last beyond the dorm room—and certainly they couldn’t last a couple hundred years, right?

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As millennial women enter their forties, will the fashion industry finally start meeting their needs?

The fashion industry is notoriously obsessed with youth.

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On Antarctica, Ukraine’s researchers get a much-needed vision of home.

A delicate outline of a house has materialized in the icy darkness of Antarctica.

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Ben Cohen’s new nonprofit cannabis brand will make you crave that chunky monkey.

Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s is telling me a story about smoking pot. We’re on Zoom, and he says: “The idea came about when I was on a camping trip with a friend of mine, sitting around a fire, smoking a joint. And we were saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to have pot like the old days?’”

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DuBalle never meant to be an advocate, but she’s become one of the leading voices in the pushback against Tennessee’s anti-drag law that’s spreading nationwide.

Bella DuBalle was visiting her parents’ farm in Cedar Grove, Tennessee, earlier this month when she got the news that Governor Bill Lee had signed into law a ban on gender-affirming healthcare for transgender children as well as a ban on “adult-oriented performances” in front of minors from artists including “male and female impersonators,” i.e. drag performers.

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Meet the Ikea researchers exploring generative AI for furniture design. Your Billy shelf may never look the same again.

Artificial intelligence has shown itself to be really good at writing essays, generating artwork, and even composing music. But are algorithms capable of designing a new Ikea chair?

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After a six-year closure, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey is undertaking an epic new act: resuscitating an 150-year-old American brand.

When the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus—back after a six-year absence—begins its 50-city tour of North America this September, it will include 75 highly trained performers and a litany of extravagant acts. Tightrope walkers will flit across a triangular rope, 30 feet in the air. Acrobats will launch themselves between four spinning wheels suspended from stadium ceilings. BMX bikers will spring off a giant trampoline. And a 360-degree set studded with massive video screens and enhanced with sonic spatial technology will envelop audiences in the spectacle.

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Amid massive tech layoffs and a bank collapse, Silicon Valley’s favorite sneaker company is dealing with its own struggles.

Branded is a weekly column devoted to the intersection of marketing, business, design, and culture.

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The ubiquitous kitchen appliance is a symbol of modern laziness and makes most food worse, so why is it having a renaissance?

Apparently, the microwave is having a moment. Not a New York Times trendiculous moment, but a real one, a bona fide renaissance of consumerist dumbness. Some thought the microwave was going to die in the mid-2010s—when sales were in free fall, dropping 25% compared to a decade earlier. But no, the infernal machine bounced back faster than the smell of reheated fish gets to Sharon’s olfactory cortex. You know Sharon, from accounting. One minute she is calmly eating her Chipotle burrito bowl 23 cubicles away from the office kitchenette, the next she is fantasizing about using her keyboard to smash that oven and whoever put the tilapia inside. Was it Steve per chance? Steve, I can’t blame her.

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Glaser’s designs are synonymous with the ’60s and ’70s. A new book shows just how influential his style really was.

I ❤️ New York. Dylan. The New York Magazine logo.

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For Innovation by Design, we’ve assembled some of the brightest minds from across the design spectrum.

We’re excited and proud to introduce some of the judges for 2023’s Innovation by Design Awards. Innovation by Design honors the best projects and ideas across the design spectrum, as represented by our stellar group of jurors, who come from some of the world’s most exciting design-led companies. Read on to meet them, and stay tuned as we add more experts.

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