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.

Jane and Benjamin Thompson, FAIA, collaborated for two decades on Design Research, the postwar emporium that introduced advanced designs from abroad. The book Design Research: The Store that Brought Modern Living to American Homes, by Jane Thompson and Alexandra Lange chronicles the renowned "General Store of Good Design," and reveals the backstory of the store...

Michael Bierut and Yve Ludwig of Pentagram talk about designing the catalog for the National Design Triennial: Why Design Now? A partner at Pentagram, a critic at Yale and a co-founder of Design Observer, Michael is one of the world's most admired graphic designers. We at Cooper-Hewitt were thrilled with the design that he created...

On May 8 Cooper-Hewitt announced the winners and finalists of the ninth annual National Design Awards. Each year the Awards recognize excellence, innovation, and public impact across a variety of disciplines, including architecture, communication, fashion, interior, landscape, and product design. We invite you to share your feedback on this year’s winners and finalists. 2008 WINNERS...

Here’s another blog that just became a book: Michael Bierut’s new collection of essays, Seventy-Nine Short Essays on Design, published by Princeton Architectural Press. Sixty-eight of those essays first appeared on Design Observer, the blog that Bierut edits with Wiliam Drenttel, Jessica Helfand, and contributors. Bierut has started a conversation at Design Observer about why...