Design coverage online leans toward the new: the concept render, the limited drop, the chair that photographs well and sits badly. We are more interested in the things that still look right decades later, and in the people who make them with unusual patience. A typeface that took eleven years to cut. Kitchen knives forged from old farrier's rasps. A lamp Poul Henningsen designed for pianists in the early 1930s, back as a limited edition.
The best starting point is Dieter Rams. His ten principles are often read as a style guide for minimalism, which misses the point. They are questions you can ask of any object, and once you know them you start to see their influence everywhere, from a Braun record player to the gadgets on your desk. Our explainer takes them one at a time, the design books guide shows where to read further, and the gift guide collects classics that are still in production.
Art sits alongside design here because the line between them is thinner than museums suggest. We cover painters, printmakers, street artists and the occasional vinyl toy, chosen the same way: work with a point of view and a story behind it. Every design and art piece we have published is linked below, with one line on why it is here.
Start here
- Dieter Rams' 10 Principles of Good Design, Explained: each principle with the Braun and Vitsœ designs that illustrate it, and where the ideas live today.
Buying guides
- 8 Design Books Every Designer Should Own: books that explain design principles rather than styles, from Don Norman to Dieter Rams, and how to read them.
- Gifts for Design Lovers: ten classics, not novelties: the Braun BC02 clock, Bialetti Moka Express, Stelton EM77, the Aalto vase and more.
Design classics
- Dieter Rams: Braun SK4: the record player under clear acrylic that earned the nickname Snow White's Coffin.
- Studio Neat: the company behind the Glif, still exactly two people fifteen years later.
- Hobonichi Techo: the planner ten million people bought, and the EarthBound creator behind it.
Deep dives: makers and objects
- Sastre: María Ramos spent eleven years on a typeface grown from her father's six decades in his A Coruña tailor shop.
- Chelsea Miller Knives: kitchen knives forged from vintage farrier's rasps, with the original crosshatched teeth left along the spine.
- Bowlus: the 1934 Road Chief, the first riveted aluminum travel trailer, and the company's return.
- Mozark Pyramid Fire Pit: a heavy recycled-steel bowl on a pyramid pedestal, simple and solid enough to last years of fires.
- Brickle: LEGO sorting tables at a steep price, and the sorting insight behind them that costs nothing.
- Nathan Kostechko x UAG: a memento mori collector's box hand-painted by the tattoo artist, in fifty editions.
Artists worth knowing
- Hayv Kahraman: a guide to the Baghdad-born painter whose multiplied women turn displacement into a visual language.
- H.R. Giger: trained in architecture and industrial design, he painted ELP's Brain Salad Surgery cover, shaped Alien and opened his own bar.
- Travis Chapman: a Spokane roofer by day who paints absurd internet subjects with straight-faced classical skill.
- Thomas Hooper, Temple Sonar: a gold print in an edition of 40, concentric geometry in the tattoo artist's stipple language.
- NTVS Marked for Strength Tee: the red handprint of the MMIW movement, with proceeds to the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center.
Latest news
- Louis Poulsen PH 1/1 Piano: Henningsen's early-1930s lamp for pianists returns as the 2026 PH limited edition, on sale only until December 31.
- Gérard Zlotykamien: painting Paris streets illegally from 1963, a decade before New York graffiti, and the Beyond the Streets Paris tribute.
- Yerman by Depressed Monsters: a small, exhausted monster first drawn in 2012, now becoming a vinyl toy.
- Jack Coulter: the Belfast painter with synaesthesia paints music as he hears it, in his first show in three years.
- teamLab Borderless Tokyo: a light sculpture that exists only in the room, paired with one that exists only in the mirror.
Where to go next
- Vinyl & Records Hub: turntables, speakers, record care and the reissues worth buying.
- Home Studio Hub: starter gear, studio headphones, synths and samplers.
- Electronic Music Labels Hub: starter guides to Warp, Kranky, Mute, Factory and the scenes around them, plus new ambient and electronic records.
- Sneakers & Style Hub: heritage boots, raw denim, workwear and the stories behind the sneakers.
- Desk & Everyday Carry Hub: everyday carry, mechanical keyboards, minimalist and repairable tech, bags and watches.
- Film & Games Hub: A24 horror, restored cult films, new releases and games that do more with less.
- The Unknowndivide Buying Guides: every guide on the site in one list.
- Incoming: the records, gear and films still on their way.
