Articles

what hanging my six-year-old out of the car window taught me about design

At 6 and 8, my girls were arguably much too young to take to Cirque du Soliel at Randall’s Island. But whether it was my own dumb efforts to be a “cool mom,” or the delicious appeal of a performance where I didn’t have to sit criss-cross-applesauce on the floor, I thought it was a fabulous plan…

what lady gaga has to teach us about white space

You’ve heard the song “Shallow” many times by now. If you’re like me, you still wake up singing it in the middle of the night. Not a bad fate—it’s a great song. But what makes it an especially powerful song is not Gaga’s bellow at the end…

philo what? why?
what’s up with this name?

There are actually three answers to this question: one serious, one sentimental, and one stupidly practical.

SERIOUS: The greek root philo means love. Think of philosophy = love of wisdom; philanthropy = love of mankind; or, new to me, philophobia = fear of falling in love. So we declare, philofect = love of effect. And it’s true, we love it when we effect growth in…