At large
Beyond client work, Turnstone regularly writes and talks in public about design, technology and urban change, sharing professional opinions and project experience to varied audiences and in a wide range of publications. See also News for updates on podcast appearances
Urban Cartography, Curated
An insider’s view of designing the Walk NYC wayfinding system. Images courtesy of PentaCityGroup.
Profile of R/GA’s Bob Greenberg, AIGA medalist
A biographical essay on Bob Greenberg, co-founder of R/GA, honored in 2014 by the American Institute of Graphic Arts for his contribution to the profession. Portrait photograph by Alen MacWeeney.…
QR This
Review of “Talk to Me” exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, New York
Defining Architect-led Design-Build Construction Methods
Definitive wikipedia entry, written with and on behalf of Gluck+, Architects
Is This Working?
Review of the WorkTech10 conference, on the future of the office
The Person Locator
A commissioned profile of UK award-winning female entrepreneur, Sara Murray, for Wired UK’s Start column. Not long before this piece, Turnstone had complained publicly about the lack of women represented…
Urban Legends: Five Ways To Redesign A City
Commissioned feature highlighting five examples of inspiring ways in which emergent, interaction design thinking improve various cities around the world, from Helsinki, San Francisco, London and elsewhere. This piece received a…
The Laws of USA-bility According to Scott Thomas
Review of a talk by former Design Director, Obama for America, to the graduate students of the SVA IxD MFA program.
Civics Lessons For and From Silicon Valley
One of Turnstone’s two reviews of the O’Reilly Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington DC. The image here is courtesy of Good magazine, featuring Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey, grandfather of the…
How Designers Will Re-engineer Our Relationship With Government
One of Turnstone’s two reviews of the O’Reilly Gov2.0 Summit and Expo, Washington DC. The image is of Here Comes Everybody, a book by conference keynote speaker, Clay Shirky.
The Post-Postopolis Post
Turnstone’s review of the urban/blog design conference, Postopolis LA, co-written with Alissa Walker.
One Stickie At A Time
Inaugural post to the forum of the Architectural League’s new blog, Urban Omnibus, featuring the work of Candy Chang.
Taxi! Service Design for New York’s Yellow Cabs
Having delivered the transit-focused keynote at the User Experience Professionals’ Association’s New York chapter for World Usability Day, Turnstone Consulting also published this lead feature in the mass transit special…
Will Your Vote Count?
Ahead of Obama’s first election win, a pre-election review of Vote & Live!’s screening of Steal Back Your Vote and Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections in the final…
Ten Ways You Can Profit From Design
Commissioned showcase of ten case studies that demonstrate how various businesses (small, medium and large enterprises, across a range of sectors) apply design principles and practice to increase their effectiveness.…
Taxi 07: Roads Forward
A 160-page report, a project of The Design Trust for Public Space, for and in partnership with The City of New York’s Taxi and Limousine Commission. Co-edited, co-authored by Rachel…
Why British Designers Need an Extreme Makeover
Commissioned feature reviewing the UK’s Design Skills Report. The headline was not the author’s choice; read on and you’ll see the piece argues not so much for an Extreme Makeover…
How Do We Not Trash The Place?
As compact fluorescents began to kill off the filament bulb, a feature about the evolution of lightbulbs! Turnstone’s notion of design as a verb appears in the editorial of this…
Ready For Its Close Up
Commissioned Turnstone’s review of the movie, Helvetica, celebrating the 50th anniversary of a typeface.
Are You Being Served?
Feature commissioned by The Economist for their 2006 More Intelligent Life supplement, about retail experience design, or why shops will endure even though we can now buy everything online.
All Together Now
Commissioned essay about creative collaboration and collaborative creativity, as Adobe and Macromedia merged. Later cited in Sharon Helmer Poggenpohl, Keiichi Satō‘s book, Design Integrations: Research and Collaboration. Image: Scott Stowell…
Promises, Promises
A review of the 2001 Superhumanism conference in London
Adventures in Tangible Computing
Referenced in the IBM Systems Journal, my 1999 MA essay on tangible computing, focusing on the work of Durrell Bishop, is still available by request. Often cited in PhD work…
Strategic, social drawing at Mount Holyoke’s Art Studio
In Spring 2021, Turnstone introduced Mount Holyoke College's fine art BFA students to the role of drawing in wider contexts: strategic drawing from the Turnstone graphic facilitation portfolio, social drawing…
Reframing innovation at the University of Portland
In this talk at University of Portland's Shiley School of Engineering, Turnstone reframed innovation, inviting students in the interdisciplinary Innovation minor to consider the distinct practices required for taking a…
The New School: Matter(ing) By Design
Panel discussion on techno-determinism and predictive design, with Turnstone's Rachel Abrams, OCAD futurist, Stuart Candy and the New School's Trebor Scholz...
Interaction15
The Future of Work, presented to the Interaction Design Association's 2015 national conference, San Francisco...
Knight Foundation: Civic Innovation in Action
In May 2014, Knight Foundation hosted 100 civic innovators at a Civic Innovation in Action Studio in Miami to explore ways to harness talent, advance opportunity, and promote robust engagement.…
Facebook Design Series
Members of PentaCityGroup presented the design process behind Walk NY to Facebook's New York-based design team...
Arup Explores Big Data
At Arup Explores Big Data, PentaCityGroup's Wendy Bell and Rachel Abrams explained Walk NY as a living, scalable database that supports a wide range of wayfinding products and integrates seamlessly…
IxDA Oslo
A talk about PentaCityGroup's design process for Walk NY, attended by 170+ members of the Interaction Design Association's Oslo chapter...
PBS St. Louis’ Stay Tuned: Mass Transit
TV interview with Turnstone in a segment of PBS St Louis' Nine Network show, Stay Tuned: Episode 202, Our Relationship With Our Ride.
Archtober, AIA New York
10 Things Public Policy Analysts Should Know about Design + 10 Things Designers Should Know about Public Policy, a Town+Gown panel for Archtober, 2013
AIGA New York
AIGA NY season opener, Fall 2013 introduced "New Walk City, Just Like We Pictured It: How PentaCityGroup Designed NYC's Streetmaps"
IIT Institute of Design
A presentation to the graduate students of the Illinois Institute of Technology's Institute of Design, Chicago.
PBS St Louis’ Stay Tuned: Public Space
TV interview with Turnstone in a segment of PBS St Louis' Nine Network show, Stay Tuned: Episode 117, The Arch Tax Vote, about the value and democratic function of public…
AIGA National Design Conference
Turnstone joined Zipcar and Facebook on a panel about designing services, hosted by Continuum Design, at the annual AIGA National Design Conference in Phoenix, AZ.
MOME, Budapest
A Turnstone Talks presentation to the industrial design graduates of the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest's leading art school, about design for New York's public spaces.
Harvard University, Graduate School of Design
Presented to a graduate audience of the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Urban Planning Organization
East Harlem School
A talk about designing for New York City, presented to 5th-8th graders of The East Harlem School
SxSW
Turnstone joined IDEO's Ben Fullerton and Tomorrow's Thoughts Today's Liam Young to discuss Design for the Dark Side, at SxSW 2010.
Random House Publishing
An internal presentation to Random House: With inspiration for book publishers from all kinds of service design, Turnstone speculated that the book industry should focus on being a distributor of…
Istituto Europeo di Design
Designers In the Driving Seat: Interaction Design Research Lessons from New York’s Yellow Cab Industry
AIGA NY at Apple
A talk for AIGA and Apple in their series, “Pro Sessions: Design Remixed" at the Apple Store, Soho NY.