Last week I got down to the serious business of discussing how graphic design can help build a powerful and effective sustainability movement.The discussion was moderated by Susan Szenasy, editor of Metropolis Magazine and, in addition to me, the panelists, were  Michael Bierut (Pentagram), Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky), Jeremy Osborn (350.org), Dmitri Siegel (Urban Outfitters) and James Slezak (Purpose.com). (The event was sponsored by AIGANY and Distributed Artist Publishers.)

In organizing this panel, we wanted to come to real, concrete conclusions and to open up some real pathways for artists to contribute meaningful work towards a movement that has the capacity to radically affect our political thinking. Let’s cut right to the chase. Here are the highlights: Read more…

Our recent story on Thom Faulders’s backyard installation Deformscape has been all over the blogs lately. People seem particularly amused (and rightfully so) by a quote from the owner, a senior vice president at Apple, regarding his ambition for the flat surface’s vortex effect: “I wanted someone to barf when they look at it.” Well, over the weekend, the project’s photographer, Theodor Rzad, chimed in on the story’s comments page with an important addendum to the discussion:

I’m Thom Faulder’s photographer for this project and I can promise you that neither of us barfed during the shoot.

Glad we cleared that up. You can view more photos of Faulders’s vertiginous installation over at Digited Image Company. And be sure to read the original story here.

More gloomy publishing news arrived in our inbox last week from Monday Morning Quarterback, a contract-furniture industry newsletter, which wrote at length about Reed Elsevier’s plans to sell Interior Design magazine. We don’t have anything to add to that discussion—but we did want to correct a mistake. At one point, the article contrasts Interior Design with “general interest consumer titles like Metropolis.” Whoa, hang on. For the record, Metropolis is a trade magazine. Our target audience is professional architects and designers. If we happen to have a broader focus than other trade publications, we think this reflects our understanding of the interdisciplinary, collaborative nature of design, and the importance for all design professionals to confront big-picture issues like sustainability and social relevance.

And now back to our regularly scheduled blogging.

With all the activity at Metropolis in the last few months—our special product issue, the 2009 Next Generation competition, New York Design Week—we’ve barely had a chance to publicize a couple of recent awards bestowed on the magazine. So please forgive us this brief moment of self-congratulation: in March, Metropolis was named the architecture magazine of the year at the International Design Awards; and, at the American Institute of Architects Convention earlier this month, the AIA handed us a Collaborative Achievement Award. We can’t resist quoting from the latter citation:

Reaching a broad cross-section of design disciplines, touching all elements of design excellence, it speaks to elemental and contextual innovation, including, but not limited to, ecological insight, livability, and community development; in short, the spectrum of all goals of the architectural profession.

We couldn’t have put it better ourselves! And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.