Design Drafts #1 is a stand-alone publication produced in a collaboration between Disegno and the Het Nieuwe Instituut.

Created to future new voices in design writing, Design Drafts #1 presents the long-form work of an inaugural cohort of laureates, each of whom has responded to the provocation ‘Is design just a game?’ Following an open call in the spring of 2022, the writers spent the summer working with our team of editors to produce exciting and original work, including personal essays, historical fiction, and a graphic story.

Design Drafts #1 includes:

1) A Love Letter with Bianca Nozaki-Nasser: how designers can embrace social justice; 2) Idle Browsing with Chinouk Filique de Miranda: the hypnotic vernacular of online shopping; 3) Between Fox Traps and Hero Bait with Gijs de Boer: why memes are the best medium for messy design discourse; 4) Architecture School: Pay to Play with Kathryn Larsen: reports from the sharp edge of an education scandal; 5) When the Words Don’t Exist with Malika Leiper: imagining a meeting of midcentury minds in Paris.

Please note, Design Drafts #1 is included within Disegno #34.