2016 Co-Design Innovation Design Awards

There were only 15 winners anointed in the entire competition. Each of those projects represents what's best about design today: big ideas, meticulously thought-out details, and a clear viewpoint about how we live now—and how it could be better. We hope that you'll dig in and be inspired.

Co-Design Innovation Awards

Architecture: A Unique History of a People Reflected in a Building

The unveiling of the newest Smithsonian museum will be celebrated this week with a series of events including a ribbon cutting by President Barka Obama. 

The building rises — bronze and "brooding," in the words of architect David Adjaye — floating in a sea of white marble and limestone on the sprawling National Mall in Washington, D.C.

The mission of the National Museum of African American History and Culture — set to open to the public next week after a 100-year journey into existence — is to tell the story of America through the lens of black history and culture.

That mission is reflected in the exhibits and encapsulated in a Langston Hughes quote featured inside the museum: "I, too, am America."

It's also reflected in the location and design of the building itself.

The decision to eschew the light-colored materials of the other "palaces of culture" on the Mall is one element of this narrative — and it also matched the philosophy of Lonnie Bunch III, the museum's founding director.

"He really embraced and really loved this idea of a dark presence on the Mall," Adjaye recalled. "In a way, the museum for him is about the way in which the African-American community is absolutely integral to understanding the American identity but somehow has been always in the back room. So this is a kind of coming to the front, sitting on the front lawn, with all the other monuments."

The museum doesn't try to hide or blend into the classical forms and perpendicular lines that surround it. It wears with pride an exterior that celebrates both Africa and America.

Take its striking silhouette — a triple inverted pyramid form, each tier angled up and out. The shape mimics that of the crowns atop the figures of the caryatids, or carved pillars, of the Yoruba, an African people with origins in Benin and Nigeria. It's an easily recognizable form from African art — akin to a Corinthian column in Western art — that denotes "very sacred, special and commemorative spaces."

"It is really a way of trying to speak to the narrative of where the African-American community originates from," Adjaye says.

Article: Mission of African-American Museum..

NY times:The National Museum of African American History...

Article: How Davis Adjaye Told The Story of the African American Experience

Architect David Adjaye's Associates Website

A Virtual Tour of the Museum

David Adjaye on designing a Museum that Speaks a Different Language

Fashion Design: Is It Design or Something Else?

New York's 2016 fall fashion week is wrapping up, which raise a nagging question for me...Is this version of Fashion Design...Design?

In considering the shows of Tom Ford and Kanye West put in to perspective what fashion design presented is really about.

"Though the results were not in any way alike, they shared a similar guiding principle: It’s not enough for any designer just to offer clothes anymore. Now it’s all about the experience.

But here’s the thing about experiences: Some of them are good, and some of them are bad. And while they can create an exciting aura around clothes, making the garments seem even more relevant and desirable, they can also cast a pall."

NYTimes Articles: Glam vs Sham..

Logo Design: Why So Many Wordless Logos?

Making logo's simple is thought to enhance their appeal.

Some marketers believe that debranding can make global brands appear “less corporate” and “more personal” to consumers. Nameless logos can evoke more personal and immediate reactions—which is important in a media environment with plenty of possible distractions and diversions.

Article: Why are so many of today's logos wordless