Whyte studied urban environments using movie cameras, recorded observations, and interviews in an attempt to understand how people actually use outdoor spaces such as plazas, sidewalks, and street corners. Whyte's earnest and often humorous narration make the film entertaining, but more than this, the material itself --the people watching-- is fascinating. Moreover, many of Whyte's findings challenge commonly held assumptions about urban design.

Watching this film was one of the most entertaining and educational hours I ever spent in graduate school. There are lessons here that any designer can learn.

Unfortunately, the video is out of print, but you can still pick up a copy of the book which covers the same material.

Over the coming week, we'll interrupt our normal DLB programming to bring you a special set of feature posts celebrating one of our favorite designers, Milton Glaser. We recently had a chance to speak with Glaser about our favorite topic, design ethics, and in celebration of the "To Inform and Delight" DVD launch, we will share some highlights of our conversation over the next week. We also have a few copies of the documentary and a few signed posters to give away - Nick will have details for you on Friday.

Even if you don't know who Milton Glaser is, it only takes a few minutes of watching the documentary to realize you're already quite familiar with his designs. Through casual conversations with Glaser himself and dozens of his closest friends and collaborators, the film gives an intimate look into the thoughts and processes of someone whose work - if not his name - is so ubiquitous and so influential. A constant theme is the importance of teaching; no doubt Glaser sees the film itself (as its title suggests) as part of his teaching project. We hope our conversations add something to that - stay tuned.

1. Do animals need privacy?

Brett Mills at the University of East Anglia suggests that the ethics of the media and privacy should be extended beyond humans to the animal world. He says it might be acceptable to film "public events" such as animals hunting - but questions more intrusive recording. For humans, he says, it is assumed that documentary makers would need consent to go into people's private lives, but no such boundary exists for wildlife filmmakers.

Albrecht Dürer, Young Hare

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This is my not too serious minimalist poster series for cult films.

The vague rules were a circle, lowercase text & one or two images (not from the film) that relate to something in the film (which will not probably make sense unless you've seen the film!)

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I chose a few that I thought were clever, but you owe it to yourself to check out the whole site. Taylor has some very nice (and more recognizable) pieces over there.

Every time Nick and I come up with a design, a strategy, or a campaign to pitch to a client, we have a meeting where we apply ourselves to this question: "Is this design ethical?"

When we first started DLB, one of our guiding principles was that we weren't going to take any jobs in which we thought we might be aiding or abetting something that was going to make our world worse. More than that, we wanted to focus on developing white-hat design and advertising techniques for a technological environment that makes it so easy to cut corners, to use ugly or unwholesome technical or psychological techniques.

Of course, this is a battle that gets won or lost anew every day, and the best you can hope for is that over time, you can load up the right side of the scale. But enough sentimental rambling. I promised you homework:

Screen capture from Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru.

Go out and get a copy of Akira Kurosawa's 1952 masterpiece, Ikiru. Watch it. Learn an important lesson about life, courage, humility and making your own happiness — but above all about doing ethical work. Then apply it to your own work; get out there and design better.

About two months ago, in the Refectory of the Dominican Friary in Santa Maria delle Grazie Church, Peter Greenaway put on a one-night show, during which he "[gave] new life to the world's most celebrated masterpiece, The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci, merging an extraordinary wealth of languages including visual arts, cinema, poetry, music and some of the most cutting-edge new technologies."

Besides being a logistical near-miracle and extraordinarily beautiful, I think the performance reinforces an important lesson: You can make something good out of something else good. You don't have to reinvent the wheel every time.

This is a lesson companies all over the world are learning as they integrate social media, musicians have known for years (sampling, mash-ups), and it also provides a perfectly reasonable argument against Not Invented Here Syndrome for people who make images. Greenaway himself described it as "a desire for an increase in visual literacy;" a thought with a variety of additional interesting connotations.

Hence, your weekend ponderable: Where in your current design project can I borrow something from somewhere else to good effect?