Interview: FUTURA’s Decades of Kinetic Art + Meaningful Collaborations

From the "BREAK" train in the '80s to today's BMW M2, the artist's work continues to move people

In 1980, a subway car sped through the Bronx completely covered in the work of Futura (the pseudonym of graffiti writer Lenny McGurr, formerly Futura 2000). It was another breakthrough for the artist—and the art form, as it was an exploration of unmatched proportions, all the while void of a traditional tag. Futura eschewed the medium’s font-forward styles for abstraction and, in doing so, helped …

Link About It: This Week’s Picks

Innovation in space food and slime, an artist's sudden success, and why we should eat more sea urchins

The Future of Space Food MIT Media Lab’s Space Exploration Initiative focuses on all kinds of research and preparation for “the day when humanity becomes a space-native civilization, as comfortable in thFrom slime to space, tech and textilese cosmos as we have been on Earth.” The team (made up of 50+ graduate students, staff, scientists, designers, and engineers) works on countless aspects of space travel, …

Studio Visit: Illustrator Olimpia Zagnoli

Connecting with the talented artist ahead of her talk at Design Indaba

Specializing in editorial illustration, Olimpia Zagnoli is one of the most important Italian artists of her generation. Her style is bold, playful and immediately recognizable—whether it’s on the cover of The New Yorker, within the pages of La Repubblica, on fabrics for Marella, or as part of a Prada campaign. We were delighted to visit Zagnoli at her Milan studio, ahead of the 25th edition …