It’s a critical reflection of the tertiary education environment in the UK within a design context and how universities in Britain are funded. She also reflects on the ramifications for faculty and the learning environment.
I have been cautious not to quote out of context for fear of being misunderstood or misrepresenting the original author, much as she acknowledges the concern in her article. I’d encourage you to read her article in full on the link above.
I’m sure the world is exhausted by the mere mention of the word ‘pandemic’ but recent academic trajectories have sent me revisiting this topic. I’ve encountered some insight and interesting podcasts which are worth your time.
’When Science Finds a Way’ and ‘Off Script’ podcasts provide case studies on predictive insights and the role of therapeutics as part of preparedness.
When Science Finds a Way
Hosted by Alisha Wainwright and produced by Wellcome, this science-focused podcast explores how scientific research and innovation are being applied to tackle urgent global health challenges. It features case studies showing predictive insights in action, for example: how early-warning and prediction tools that integrate health and climate data are being used to anticipate outbreaks (such as dengue and Zika) and support community responses before diseases spread. Interviews with scientists, public health authorities and communities highlight the translation of data into practical preparedness measures, demonstrating how predictive models and local collaboration can improve outbreak readiness and resilience.
Off Script
A limited-series podcast from the Cumming Global Centre for Pandemic Therapeutics (Peter Doherty Institute) focused on the role of therapeutics in pandemic preparedness. Across its episodes, experts including WHO figures, health economists, policymakers and scientists discuss why therapeutics (drugs that treat disease after infection) are a critical complement to vaccines in a future health emergency. Themes include: the gap in investment and development timelines for therapeutics exposed by COVID-19; how platform technologies like mRNA could accelerate treatment responses; the importance of equitable access and global health equity; and how ready-to-deploy therapeutics could reduce hospital pressure, help keep societies functioning and shape more nuanced policy responses in future pandemics.
Stripe Press is owned by Stripe, the financial infrastructure company, acting as their in-house publishing arm. It’s a strategic content initiative – a publishing venture by the same company that provides online payment processing services.
That said, they produce a number of interesting titles and h/t to @bradbarrish for putting Stewart Brand’s Maintenance of Everything, Part One on to my timeline. I realise that I have ‘Get Together’ already and that it’s horrifyingly five years old which consigns itself to historical account versus practical guide.
As an aside, I rather like Stripe Press’s website design as well, it’s rare to encounter a site that doesn’t feel like the product of a commoditised template library. I imagine the design intent was slightly skeuomorphic – to capture the feel of lifting the book off a shelf and opening it. The holy grail for physical product retail - how do you approximate the tactile experience to drive conversion? The lazy and environmentally harmful answer always seems to be ‘free returns’.
You may not know Jon Hicks but you’ve likely seen his work as the graphic designer of Firefox, MailChimp and Shopify logos.
In 2012, he published a book entitled ‘The Icon Handbook’ - it’s a great primer and culimination of two years of work and guides you through the process of designing icons - from identifying an appropriate metaphor to drawing symbols through to the practicalities of implementation. Best of all, he is providing it free of charge on the basis that quite a lot of the content has aged although that does not apply to many of the foundational principles.
Even if you’re not interested in creating your own icons, the chapters on history, metaphor and use are valuable and accessible to a non-design audience.
Warning systems rely on icons to overcome language barriers and issues with translation so understanding the design process can only inform better briefs and more effective design.
Tongue in cheek but lo-fidelity solutions still offer redundancy and remove dependency. Although just how much advance warning googly eyes offer remains a point of debate.
In the age of AI slop and fake imagery, there is innate pleasure in real images of the natural world. It’s hard not to be captivated by some of these images.
Climate change is increasingly exposing polar regions to large landslides. Tsunamigenic landslides have occurred recently in Greenland, but none have been reported from the eastern fjords. In September 2023, scientists detected the start of a 9-day-long global 10.88 mHz (92 s) monochromatic very-long period (VLP) seismic signal, originating from East Greenland. This video demonstrates how this event started with a 25 M m3 glacial thinning-induced rockslide plunging into Dickson Fjord, triggering a 200 m high tsunami. Simulations show the tsunami stabilized into a 7 m-high long-duration seiche with a near-identical frequency (11.45 mHz) and slow amplitude decay as the seismic signal. An oscillating, fjord-transverse single-force reproduces the seismic amplitudes and their radiation pattern relative to the fjord, demonstrating how a seiche directly caused the 9-day long seismic signal. The findings highlight how climate change is causing cascading, hazardous feedbacks between the cryosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere.
The study was conducted by Svennevig et al. (2024) and published in Science.
Vol.co, an imprint of Thames & Hudson delivered Woman at Work today. I was a backer of the production so got to see my name immortalised in print in the special edition.
Margaret Calvert is one of the most important British graphic designers of our time. Her groundbreaking work on the signs for the British national road network means that it is almost impossible to travel anywhere in the UK and not benefit from her ultra-clear typography and cheerful pictograms. Her work has provided the gold standard for international highway directional signs. In a parallel career she became an inspirational teacher at the Royal College of Art, where for nearly four decades she taught a generation of graphic designers, many of them going on to establish worldwide reputations.
Born in South Africa in 1936, Margaret came to the UK with her mother and sister in 1950. After studying illustration and printmaking at Chelsea School of Art, she was invited by visiting tutor Jock Kinneir to assist him on designing the signs for Gatwick Airport (she had just turned 21). When Kinneir was put in charge of designing a new system for British road signs, it was the beginning of a long working partnership that led to the creation of the now famous road signing for the motorways alongside a complementary approach for the entire network, including pictograms, and onto work for the British Airports Authority, British Rail and the Tyne and Wear Metro in 1980. Margaret designed the lettering for the latter project, which is now available from Monotype as the Calvert typeface.
Unconscionable feels inadequate to describe the cavalier and callousness metered out in performative politics. Read the full article on ProPublica.
“By now the broad story of USAID’s ruin has been widely told: The decree handed down by Trump; Elon Musk, who led the new Department of Government Efficiency; and Russell Vought, who holds the purse strings for the administration as the head of the Office of Management and Budget, to scuttle the agency and undo decades of humanitarian work in the name of austerity. Publicly, the administration tried to temper international backlash by promising to keep or restore critical lifesaving programs.
But that promise was not kept. Instead, a cast of Trump’s lesser-known political appointees and DOGE operatives cut programs in ways that guaranteed widespread harm and death in some of the world’s most desperate situations, according to an examination by ProPublica based on previously unreported episodes inside the government as well on-the-ground reporting in South Sudan. In some cases, they abandoned vital operations by clicking through a spreadsheet or ignoring requests in their inboxes.”
It’s that time of the year when YouTube becomes inundated with highlight reels. As I film and shoot, I’m always interested to see filmmaker or manufacturer technology showcases. Irritatingly, drone footage of wildlife in particular frequently highlights incredible footage shot incredibly unethically. In isolation, it’s probably not going to cause harm and there are mitigations with flight height (relying on telephoto lenses) and using low noise propellers but it encourages replication and compounds the problem. Elephants are deterred by bees and the sound of a drone is not dissimilar to an angry swarm, certainly to an Elephant.
There are a couple of questionable encounters in the GoPro reel which is why I mention the impact of drones but what caught my attention was the filmmaker who flew a GoPro into a tornado. I’ve time coded it to the footage on the link but it’s incredible to have that perspective within a weather system.
I appreciate there is a great degree of complex argument and tax efficiency involved in this level of philanthropy but I have always had a sense that there is an inherent level of personal atonement for Mackenzie given the origins of much of her wealth.
When the department switched to Calibri from Times New Roman in 2023, officials said the move was intended to improve accessibility for readers with disabilities, such as low vision and dyslexia, and for people using assistive technologies, like screen readers. Apparently, Trump believes this will restore decorum.
_Renowned photographer Tim Flach is known for his stylised animal portraits. He has dedicated his career to documenting biodiversity and conveying empathy for our planet’s endangered creatures. Driven by a desire to share stories of the natural world, he collaborates with scientists to research how imagery can better lead to pro-environmental outcomes. _
The natural world faces unprecedented threats, challenging historical perceptions of nature as inexhaustible. Photographer Tim Flach draws on his acclaimed works, including Endangered, More Than Human, and Birds, to reveal how photography transcends traditional wildlife representation. By employing critical anthropomorphism and human portraiture techniques, Flach’s images foster empathy and kinship with animals. Collaborating with social scientists, he illustrates how visual storytelling evokes emotional responses and inspires conservation action, showcasing the profound intersection of art, science, and social awareness in the Anthropocene.
In news that comes as a surprise to nobody with a modicum of pecuniary sense is news that the COVID-19 enquiry is considerably more costly than previously thought.
Paul Johnson, former IFS director published Spending £200m on the Covid inquiry is symbolic of Britain’s failure regarding the economic aspects and he makes valid points and aptly describes the exercise as “A bureaucratic, lawyer-driven, backwards-looking, largely pointless exercise put in place for reasons that already seem lost in the mists of time but with an unstoppable momentum of its own.”
He concludes with “_There is much to learn about both the economics and the political economy. But the big lessons are straightforward enough. They should not take years of work or vast sums of money to uncover. _”
It feels that the executive summary of the whole affair will devolve into something like ‘lessons were learnt’ and that there will be no real accountability.
_This event brings scientists and filmmakers together in a symbiosis of minds to learn, collaborate and share how best to keep science at the heart of our natural world stories.
Highlight the importance of nurturing relationships between those with knowledge, and those that want to share it.
Platform successful case studies of scientists and filmmakers coming together to communicate science effectively and creatively._
Artificial intelligence has been used in weather forecast models for some time. Google’s DeepMind, though, marks a significant step forward, one that suggests AI may soon overtake the physics-based models meteorologists have long relied on.
_There were 13 named storms and three Category 5 hurricanes. But, for the first time in a decade, a hurricane did not make landfall in the U.S.
The season’s most destructive hurricane, Melissa, was one of the strongest Atlantic storms ever. It slammed Jamaica with 185 mph winds, devastating communities and killing dozens of people.
A week before the hurricane made landfall, however, forecast models disagreed on where it would go. One model that got it right — accurately predicting Melissa’s path and its Category 5 intensity — was a new one: Google’s DeepMind AI-based hurricane model._
As the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season ends, the future of forecasting is AI
Striking when you consider that an “estimated [that] USAID assistance—aimed at combatting diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and polio, reducing maternal and child deaths, and fighting malnutrition—had saved 92 million lives over two decades”
To see the impact of the loss US AID, ‘Rovina’s Choice’ brings into stark reality what goes when aid goes.
I was sorry to miss Paris Photo 2025 which was hosted at the Grand Palais. The last time I went to the Grand Palais was in 2017 for the Irving Penn Centennial which was outstanding. The Grand Palais is one of my favourite buildings in Paris.
Beate Gütschow’s latest book was launched at Paris Photo ‘25 and offers depictions of disaster in the aftermath of recovery:
People on the brink, depopulated areas, desolate villages—it only becomes clear after a second glance that Beate Gütschow’s photos show protests, reconstruction work after catastrophic flooding, and the impact of forest fires on villages and landscapes: dystopian events that have happened in the recent past, and in Central Europe at that. It is not until weeks after the events that Gütschow arrives in the places concerned. Her long-term photographic studies give rise to counter-images to set against the usual depictions of disaster. These are more tranquil images that are emotionally accessible and make it possible for events to be analyzed. Gütschow is also part of the climate justice movement. Here, she participates in and records what she finds, documenting actions, occupations, and demonstrations: an interior perspective in which the photographs combine with diaristic notes to create a composition of text and images.
There is huge potential for scenario based table top exercises in ‘virtualised environments’. Emergency role play scenarios grounded in digital twins allow for better responder preparedness or in schools, can engender drill preparedness in a more engaging way.
The “special event” held on November 20, where players took on different roles that reflect real-life ICE raids, was the first initiative by New Save Collective, a baker’s dozen of gamers with backgrounds in activism and organizing, whose goal is to educate gamers and teach people about their rights when dealing with ICE in real-world situations.
When it comes to global climate action, the COP30 consensus is the floor – the bare minimum of what the world must do – not the ceiling that limits what is possible.
I discovered the work of Davina Jogi via Akashinga and browsed her portfolio site. Filtering her stories, I found a series entitled ‘The Portrait’ which immediately transported me home to Zimbabwe.
It was a legal mandate to publicly hang an official portrait of Robert Mugabe at registered business premises. They were supplied by the Ministry of Information and were a symbol of ZANU-PF rule. In the wake of Mugabe’s forced resignation in 2017, the ramifications of the transition were unclear, and with an abundance of caution, many business owners left them in place.
