While supplies last, you can get an author-signed edition of The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design by Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt — available for pre-order at Barnes & Noble for the same price as the regular editions! Ever wonder how autho … | Continue reading
It’s one thing to look at a finished illustration and imagine the time, energy and steps that went into making it, but for The 99% Invisible City, illustrator Patrick Vale also made a series of motion-capture movies that provide a unique, step-by-step window into the creative pro … | Continue reading
In a sometimes-disputed territorial map of global rat habitats, there’s a curiously shaped void in North America showing where Alberta has engaged in an all-out war to remain rat-free. For seven decades, this Canadian province has managed to keep these rodents at bay, thanks in l … | Continue reading
As many know, 99pi is a member of Radiotopia, a podcast network produced and distributed in collaboration with PRX. All of the shows in Radiotopia are independent, including 99pi. We are not employed by PRX, but we have worked together for a long time. PRX has played an important … | Continue reading
Walter was just eleven years old when he was admitted to L.A.’s infamous Scared Straight program for graffiti related crimes. In this episode, Walter, through a chance encounter, checks-in with his friend who went through the program with him, their anti-tagging arch-nemesis, a … | Continue reading
Unveiled as a font of the future, Futura has surprisingly a long history, dating back to the functionally focused Bauhaus era of design in the 1920s. It was clear and legible, virtually the opposite of typefaces like Fraktur, which was ornate and arguably quite hard to read as a … | Continue reading
There are many books about McDonald’s that criticize the company for its many sins, and author Marcia Chatelain has read all of them. But her book comes at this famous fast-food restaurant from a different angle and with a much wider lens. In Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black … | Continue reading
Coming out this fall, a beautifully designed and illustrated book written by 99% Invisible host Roman Mars and coauthor Kurt Kohlstedt will show you new sides to the seemingly ordinary designs all around you. Pre-order your copy today on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop or Indieb … | Continue reading
About an hour northwest of Madrid, an enormous stone crucifix rises 500 feet out of a rocky mountaintop. It’s so big you can see it from miles away. Beneath the cross, there’s a sprawling Benedictine monastery and a basilica carved out of the mountain. This place is called the Va … | Continue reading
Signs telling drivers to STOP are easy to identify in the United States — aside from the big block letters, their red backgrounds and octagonal shapes give them away (at least until you spot a blue one). But to understand why most are red (and some are blue), one needs to go back … | Continue reading
In the heart of the Caribbean, there is a little island called Anguilla. At its widest point, it’s only about 16 miles across. Anguilla’s white sandy beaches and crystal blue waters have made it one of the most desirable tourist destinations in the Caribbean, but back in the 1960 … | Continue reading
There are many books about McDonald’s that criticize the company for its many sins, and author Marcia Chatelain has read all of them. But her book comes at this famous fast-food restaurant from a different angle and with a much wider lens. In Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black … | Continue reading
Four figures of Icelandic legend are embedded in a newly designed national sports team logo — an eagle, giant, bull, and dragon, each abstracted and then combined. Together, they form a sharp and elegant yet geometrically complex icon, like a paper-cut snowflake. The designers r … | Continue reading
Back in the 1960s and 70s, in the city of Pittsburgh, there was a nickname for guys like John Moon – The Unemployables. This nickname meant that you simply could not get hired, no matter where you went for a job. Moon grew up in Pittsburgh’s largely Black and economically depress … | Continue reading
Back in the 1960s and 70s, in the city of Pittsburgh, there was a nickname for guys like John Moon – The Unemployables. This nickname meant that you simply could not get hired, no matter where you went for a job. Moon grew up in Pittsburgh’s largely Black and economically depress … | Continue reading
Paul Revere Williams was a prolific architect capable of designing compelling buildings across a wide spectrum of styles; but while much of his legacy remains in the built environment of Los Angeles, it was long believed most of his illustrations and blueprints were lost in a fir … | Continue reading
During 99% Invisible’s 2018 East Coast Tour with Radiotopia, host Roman Mars could be spotted wearing a distinctive lapel pin (unique at the time) based on the classic 99pi challenge coin design. That pin is now available to all 99pi fans in our store with a special club card. Al … | Continue reading
All across the country, protestors have been tearing down old monuments. These monuments have been falling in the middle of historic protests against police brutality. Sparked by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, these demonstrations have spread to communities, big and s … | Continue reading
One of the cool parts about moving to a new city or a new state or a new country is that you notice all the fascinating things about a place that is just normal for people who have been there for a long time. When Chris Carlier moved from England to Japan in 2002, there | Continue reading
If you’re on Instagram there’s a decent chance you’ve seen a picture of this particular building called the Yardhouse. The Yardhouse was designed by the London-based architecture collective Assemble. The designers had just moved into their first studio in the Stratford neighborho … | Continue reading
A wedding was once seen as a start of young adulthood. Now, a wedding has come to represent a crowning achievement — a symbol that your whole life is together and you have accrued the time and space and resources to afford your ascent to another level of fulfillment. And there’s … | Continue reading
In 1968, the police department in Menlo Park, California hired a new police chief. His name was Victor Cizanckas and his main goal was to reform the department, which had a strained relationship with the community at the time. The 1960s had been a turbulent decade in Menlo Park, … | Continue reading
Diamonds represent value, in all its multiple meanings: values, as in ethics, and value as in actual price. But what are these rocks actually worth? The ethics and costs of diamond rings have shifted with society, from their artificial scarcity perpetuated by DeBeers to their art … | Continue reading
At some point in your life you’ve probably encountered a problem in the built world where the fix was obvious to you. Maybe a door that opened the wrong way, or poorly painted marker on the road. Mostly, when we see these things, we grumble on the inside, and then do nothing. But … | Continue reading
Menswear can seem boring. If you look at any award show, most of the men are dressed in black pants and black jackets. This uniform design can be traced back to American Revolution, classical statuary, and one particular bloke bopping around downtown London way back in the 1770s. … | Continue reading
The world of high end perfume is surprisingly lucrative, considering that scent is often the most ignored of our senses. But one can’t judge a scent solely by the brand and shape of the bottle. With the right amount of attention, perfume can be a key to a whole olfactory world. … | Continue reading
Brands hold immense sway over both consumers and the American legal system. Few know this as well as Dapper Dan, who went from street hustler to fashion impresario and has spent time on both sides of American trademark law. Articles of Interest is a limited-run podcast series abo … | Continue reading
In the wake of World War II, the government of France commissioned its most prominent designers to create a collection of miniature fashion dolls. It might seem like an odd thing to fund, but the fantasy of high fashion inspired hope in postwar Paris. These dolls also forever cha … | Continue reading
Given the bonds between the United States and Europe in the wake of World War II, it is hard to imagine America’s United Nations headquarters located anywhere but the East Coast, yet hundreds of locations were considered, including the Black Hills of South Dakota. There were a lo … | Continue reading
Summer is normally cruise ship season in Southeast Alaska. Starting in late April ships filled with tourists sail up the inside passage, stopping at little coastal port towns. One of the popular destinations along this route is Glacier Bay. It’s this spectacular bay filled with i … | Continue reading
Stories inspired by two people from the world of architecture and design we’ve lost due to COVID. No matter which James Bond actor is your favorite, it’s undeniable that the Sean Connery films had the best villains. There’s Blofeld, who turned cat-stroking into a thing that super … | Continue reading
In January, reporter Rebecca Kanthor set out to travel across central China from her home base in Shanghai, making her way to her in-laws home for Chinese New Year. As she walked out the door and put a location into her GPS app on her phone in a robotic voice instructing her to “ … | Continue reading
We have seen the future, and the future is mostly blue. Or, put another way: in our representations of the future in science fiction movies, blue seems to be the dominant color of our interfaces with technology yet to come. And that is one of the many design lessons we can learn … | Continue reading
In the aftermath of a sudden disaster, people come together to help, but everything changes when the disaster is ongoing — and even more so when physically coming together poses medical risks both for communities that need assistance and would-be volunteers. Suddenly, needs shift … | Continue reading
If you have tried to buy toilet paper in the last few weeks, you might have found yourself staring at an empty aisle in the grocery store, wondering where all the toilet paper has gone. Concerns over the toilet paper supply is not limited to the United States. In the Netherlands, … | Continue reading
In times like these, we could all use a little historical perspective. In this new podcast from Radiotopia, Jody Avirgan, political historian Nicole Hemmer, and special guests rescue moments from the entirety of U.S. history to map our journey through a tumultuous year. Each epis … | Continue reading
It was the middle of the night on March 27, 1964. Earlier that evening, the second-biggest earthquake ever measured at the time had hit Anchorage, Alaska. 115 people died. Some houses had been turned completely upside down while others had skidded into the sea. But that brief and … | Continue reading
Hello beautiful, homebound nerds. If I sound a little different, it’s because I’m recording this at home. I am not sick, you hopefully aren’t either, but many of us are staying home so that we don’t inadvertently become vectors for a virus, whose impact we don’t fully understand. … | Continue reading
William Murphy was not the first pioneer of space-saving furniture, but thanks to some clever innovation, good timing and fortuitous funding, his surname has become the household name in foldout beds and a widely used generic applied to similar designs. Murphy was born in 1876 to … | Continue reading
William Murphy was not the first pioneer of space-saving furniture, but thanks to some clever innovation, good timing and fortuitous funding, his surname has become the household name in foldout beds and a widely used generic applied to similar designs. Murphy was born in 1876 to … | Continue reading
As Polish-American scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski observed in the early 1900s: “the map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.” The point, in part, is that maps are represent … | Continue reading
As Polish-American scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski observed in the early 1900s: “the map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.” The point, in part, is that maps are represent … | Continue reading
Announcing plans to add space for art, culture and more, the huge banner hung off the side of a building in Berlin’s Mitte (or: Middle) in 2015 looked legitimate enough at a glance. The team of artists who erected it used official city fonts and graphic design elements, then rent … | Continue reading
English engineer Sir William Cubitt’s “tread-wheel” was not exactly a new invention, but its dark application was novel. It was engineered to occupy and exhaust prisoners who were forced to endlessly walk over a cylindrical device. At the same time, it was not strictly punitive. … | Continue reading
The weather can be a simple word or loaded with meaning depending on the context — a humdrum subject of everyday small talk or a stark climactic reality full of existential associations with serious disasters. In his book The Weather Machine, author Andrew Blum discusses these ex … | Continue reading
The Senate bathing facility, pictured here, boasted of tubs carved from single blocks of Carrara marble. Minton tiles covered the floor. In 1869 a city newspaper published a description of one of these luxurious bathing chambers, noting that ‘when not in use, it is always open to … | Continue reading
At the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Kentucky, drivers from all over the country converge each year to show off their chrome and exchange stories, tips and gripes. One thing unites most in attendance this year: concerns about the steady march of technology, especially … | Continue reading
Looking up in a city, you may notice that many buildings step back as they get higher, or are set back from sidewalks to create open spaces on the ground. While not unique to New York, the effect is particularly pronounced in the Big Apple’s densely packed street canyons. The sha … | Continue reading