Monocle on Design
Your essential guide to design, covering furniture, craft, and architecture. Discover fresh stories, rising talents, and the latest from top studios.
Latest Episodes
Graphic design digest
Coming up today we’re talking graphic design and digging into the archives to find some of our favourite recent interviews. We discuss the art of data visualisation with Steven Heller and Josh Fehnert asks Julius Wiedemann about the golden age of mid-century logos.
Extra: Setting the scene
In the age of coronavirus, broadcast news has never been more important. We visit Bloomberg TV’s London HQ, designed by Norman Foster, to find out what it takes to build a cutting-edge news set.
Architecture and the media, design in Asia and Josef Frank
This week we offer some design-minded diversions from the heavy headlines. We talk design in Asia with Hong Kong-based editor Suzy Annetta and Josh Fehnert discusses how Austrian designer Josef Frank found favour in Sweden.
Extra: Eileen Gray
Underappreciated in her lifetime, the career of late Irish architect and designer Eileen Gray is the subject of a timely new exhibition at The Bard Graduate Center Gallery in New York. Jennifer Goff, curator of the Eileen Gray collection at the National Museum of Ireland, tells us more.
Ilse Crawford, Yasmeen Lari and Vienna’s mall maestro
British designer Ilse Crawford discusses her appetising revamp of Helsinki’s Alvar Aalto-designed Savoy restaurant. Plus: we meet Pakistani architect Yasmeen Lari, and Josh Fehnert discusses malls and the future of retail.
Extra: ‘Cars: Accelerating the Modern World’
‘Cars: Accelerating the Modern World’ is an exhibition at London’s V&A museum examining the shifting role of the automobile in everything from social style to mechanics. We speak to its curator, Brendan Cormier.
Lahore, the kimono and the Pritzker prize
We talk improvised urbanism in Lahore and how the kimono influenced the world of fashion. Plus: Josh Fehnert interviews Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, winners of this year’s Pritzker prize for architecture.
Extra: Wayfinding: a design history of the National Park Service
The National Park Service spans hundreds of sites across the US, including monuments, seashores, memorials and parks. Brian Kelley and Jesse Reed survey the design history of the agency’s visual identity.
Meeting Willo Perron, Aric Chen and Jill Magid
Designer Willo Perron talks about creating a stage-show that pops for everyone from Jay Z to Florence and the Machine. Plus a word with Design Miami’s curatorial director and a documentary maker on her latest film all about Mexican architect Luis Barragán.
Extra: Fungus among us
How can nature help us when it comes to building products that last? Enter seaweed, silk and cellulose. And how about a few design tips taken from the humble mushroom? Monocle’s Christy Evans unearths some answers.
