The design writer and critic Alice Rawsthorn counts the photographer and filmmaker László Moholy-Nagy as one of her heroes. Her book of essays Design as an Attitude draws its title from Moholy-Nagy’s Vision in Motion, in which he argued for the connections between art and life, and how design is characterized by resourcefulness, invention, and the needs of a community.
This principle carries through Rawsthorn’s work, where she consistently champions design’s potential to address complex challenges facing societies around the globe. In 2020, Rawsthorn cofounded the Design Emergency project with the Museum of Modern Art curator Paola Antonelli, to investigate the design response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The project started with an Instagram account. It’s now also a podcast, YouTube channel, and a book, Design Emergency: Building a Better Future. The initiative swiftly expanded to tell stories of how designers are reacting to ecological and sociopolitical emergencies, and how advances in communication and technology are influencing change. These are themes that Rawsthorn has previously investigated in her design columns for the New York Times. Last winter, writer Billie Muraben met Rawsthorn at her London home, where they spoke about how stories of design are often told through photographs.
Billie Muraben: With Design Emergency, why was it important for you and Paola Antonelli to have an open definition, or interpretation, of what design is and who designers are?
