Co.Design

Dealing with creative failure? Here’s what to do next

Seven artists talk about dealing with disappointment–and how to turn failure into a creative force.

Building Burning Man looks way more fun than attending

Long before the festival starts, surveyors and builders conjure Black Rock City out of the forbidding desert. It looks like a blast.

This foot surgeon invented killer heels that won’t kill your feet

A podiatrist launches a glamorous shoe startup, making the case that the ultimate luxury is being able to walk without pain.

Design is never neutral

Designers can’t simply make digital products easier to use. They have to think about what’s in the best interests of the user, writes Adobe’s Khoi Vinh.

What American inequality looks like from above

Homeless encampments, glassy offices, RVs, and tech buses.

An architect’s defense of open-plan offices

A recent study of how employees communicate in open-plan offices seemed to be the final nail in the coffin of this popular workplace design. But the study had an essential flaw, writes architect Ashley L. Dunn.

How gambling distorts reality and hooks your brain

Slot machines are designed to deceive. Here’s how.

All the ways you’re making bad data viz choices

Tumblr is killing off its dot

The brand is dropping the period from its logo, more proof that quirky tech branding is over.

Trulia is building the Netflix for neighborhoods

Trulia is launching a new editorial initiative that takes you into communities where you’re considering buying. Eventually, it wants to recommend your next neighborhood.

Motherhood is changing. Why isn’t the fertility process, too?

More women than ever are undergoing fertility treatment on their own. Yet the process is designed almost exclusively for couples. Smart Design’s Stephanie Yung explores a better way in this three-part series called Project Junior.

The first graphene jacket is here, and it’s magical

And it only costs $695.

This millennial dream home is designed around succulents

The house features a two-story greenhouse, which will appeal to the growing number of young people who are eschewing kids for houseplants.

Life with four arms looks pretty great

A robotic backpack gives humans an extra pair of arms. It’s just as uncanny as it sounds.

A brief history of plastic, design’s favorite material

More and more Americans reckon with their wild overuse of plastic. Here’s how we got so dependent on the stuff in the first place.

Study: Blue light from screens can steadily blind us

New research reveals that blue light from smartphones and laptops creates toxic mutations in our eyes.

A first look at San Francisco’s sensational new elevated park

Designed by PWP Landscape Architecture, the designers behind the 9/11 Memorial, the Salesforce Transit Center Park opened in a part of the city desperate for green space–and even helped change local zoning regulations.

The future of office wear? Blazers made of yoga pant fabric

An ex-banker launches a fashion startup that makes luxurious women’s suits and shift dresses that live up to 18-hour days at the office.

Why Kerala, India, has the world’s wildest church architecture

The Southern Indian state is home to amazingly experimental design–a reaction to the staid architecture of the colonial era.