Google’s new logo, design thinking, and lessons from Oliver Sacks

Rainbows, selfie sticks, and the flag of New Zealand

Visualizing new horizons, from Pluto to Porto

Art, nostalgia, and community; Dannemora’s racist escape note; and Rachel Carson for the new $10.

Mentioned: Milan, Mario Batali, Michelle Obama, Moshe Safdie, Modernism, MOO (our sponsor), Michael Erard, metaphor design, Macintosh icons, Massimo Vignelli, Material Design (moronic!), metastasis, mapping expectations of the future world against a reality that is myopic.

The latest verbal sparring match between Jessica Helfand and Michael Bierut. Are boxing and photography hipster pleasures? Are they past their prime, or do they have a bright future?

Plus: Michael on that time he got punched in the nose.

Michael and Jessica discuss the Doomsday Clock, Canada‘s anniversary logo, and Tim Geithner’s infographic challenge for MBA students.

A trip to San Francisco reminds Jessica that design can mean something very different in technology companies than it did for “classically trained graphic designers of a certain generation,” i.e. her and Michael.

“Culturally, what has shifted is that they work in teams and they don't have the same kind of understanding of one person making one thing at one time.”

A new sonic tour of the Bay Area's fringes. This installment: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz Island

Silence often demarcates power, while it can also be used as a tool in response. In the case of Bayview that afternoon, silence was a compounded diffusion of many agencies of power, from those who have been silenced to those who have chosen to remain silent. Surrounding a small vivacious street party, the only other thing left to hear in a few hours listen was the ominous quiet of the status quo.