The Designers Republic creates images that make the most jaded consumer a sucker for packaging. The work is playful in every sense: bright, candy-colored compositions with anime cartoon children running rampant; it's like Hello Kitty playing laser tag. Yet these images play snidely with branding, cor

Bright, Citational, Cool, Playful, Pop, Psychedelic design, Rebel

Slinky, kinky, and plastic. These are the descriptors that Joe Colombo's version of a utopian space-age future calls to mind. In the 1960s, sci-fi fantasies gave rise to molded curves, tubular furniture, and synthetic fabrics. The Italians and Scandinavians were at the forefront of the design revolut

Fantastic, Playful, Pop/surrealism/anti-design, Quirky, Round

By rights, Todd Oldham should have been a fashion failure. He is exceptionally polite and sunny in an industry that punishes good manners and good cheer. He is openly critical of the fashion machine. Worst of all, he finds fashion funny, and fashion is an entity not known for its sense of humor. None

Bright, Collage, Couture, Decorative, Funny, Playful, Vibrant color

John Maeda is distressed at the state of the design arts. As upgrades in design software keep users in a constant state of tutelage, esteem tends to fall on those who master the app, not the craft. The conceptual innovations at the core of artistic creation lose out as software presents new tools to

Mathematical, Playful, Repetitive, Smart, The digital era