At large

Beyond client work, Turnstone regularly writes and talks in public about design, technology and urban change, sharing professional opinions and project experience to varied audiences and in a wide range of publications.

Print magazine / Oct 15, 2014

Urban Cartography, Curated

An insider’s view of designing the Walk NYC wayfinding system. Images courtesy of PentaCityGroup.
AIGA Awards / Apr 01, 2014

Profile of R/GA’s Bob Greenberg, AIGA medalist

A biographical essay on Bob Greenberg, co-founder of R/GA, honored in 2014 by the American Institute of Graphic Arts for his contribution to the profession. Portrait photograph by Alen MacWeeney.…
Architect’s Newspaper / Aug 31, 2011

QR This

Review of “Talk to Me” exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, New York
Wikipedia / Mar 15, 2011

Defining Architect-led Design-Build Construction Methods

Definitive wikipedia entry, written with and on behalf of Gluck+, Architects
Urban Omnibus / May 28, 2010

Is This Working?

Review of the WorkTech10 conference, on the future of the office
Wired (UK) /

The Person Locator

A commissioned profile of UK award-winning female entrepreneur, Sara Murray, for Wired UK’s Start column. Not long before this piece, Turnstone had complained publicly about the lack of women represented…
Design Council Magazine, Issue 6 / Oct 01, 2009

Urban Legends: Five Ways To Redesign A City

Commissioned feature highlighting five examples of inspiring ways in which emergent, interaction design thinking improve various cities around the world, from Helsinki, San Francisco, London and elsewhere. This piece received a…
TechPresident.com / Sep 22, 2009

The Laws of USA-bility According to Scott Thomas

Review of a talk by former Design Director, Obama for America, to the graduate students of the SVA IxD MFA program.
Good Magazine / Sep 04, 2009

Civics Lessons For and From Silicon Valley

One of Turnstone’s two reviews of the O’Reilly Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington DC. The image here is courtesy of Good magazine, featuring Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey, grandfather of the…
Good Magazine / Sep 04, 2009

How Designers Will Re-engineer Our Relationship With Government

One of Turnstone’s two reviews of the O’Reilly Gov2.0 Summit and Expo, Washington DC. The image is of Here Comes Everybody, a book by conference keynote speaker, Clay Shirky.
Urban Omnibus / Apr 30, 2009

The Post-Postopolis Post

Turnstone’s review of the urban/blog design conference, Postopolis LA, co-written with Alissa Walker.
UXPA, User Experience magazine / Nov 15, 2008

Taxi! Service Design for New York’s Yellow Cabs

Having delivered the transit-focused keynote at the User Experience Professionals’ Association’s New York chapter for World Usability Day, Turnstone Consulting also published this lead feature in the mass transit special…
The Economist, Intelligent Life / Oct 29, 2008

Will Your Vote Count?

Ahead of Obama’s first election win, a pre-election review of Vote & Live!’s screening of Steal Back Your Vote and Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections in the final…
Design Council Magazine, Issue 5 / Oct 01, 2008

Ten Ways You Can Profit From Design

Commissioned showcase of ten case studies that demonstrate how various businesses (small, medium and large enterprises, across a range of sectors) apply design principles and practice to increase their effectiveness.…
Design Trust for Public Space / Dec 07, 2007

Taxi 07: Roads Forward

A 160-page report, a project of The Design Trust for Public Space, for and in partnership with The City of New York’s Taxi and Limousine Commission. Co-edited, co-authored by Rachel…
Design Council Magazine, Issue 3 / Dec 01, 2007

Why British Designers Need an Extreme Makeover

Commissioned feature reviewing the UK’s Design Skills Report. The headline was not the author’s choice; read on and you’ll see the piece argues not so much for an Extreme Makeover…
Good Magazine / Aug 16, 2007

How Do We Not Trash The Place?

As compact fluorescents began to kill off the filament bulb, a feature about the evolution of lightbulbs! Turnstone’s notion of design as a verb appears in the editorial of this…
Eye magazine, Issue 64 / Jun 15, 2007

Ready For Its Close Up

Commissioned Turnstone’s review of the movie, Helvetica, celebrating the 50th anniversary of a typeface.  
Adobe Design Center Think Tank / Oct 01, 2005

All Together Now

Commissioned essay about creative collaboration and collaborative creativity, as Adobe and Macromedia merged. Later cited in Sharon Helmer Poggenpohl, Keiichi Satō‘s book, Design Integrations: Research and Collaboration. Image: Scott Stowell…
The Economist, Intelligent Life / Oct 01, 2005

Are You Being Served?

Commissioned feature about retail experience design, or why shops will endure even though we can now buy everything online.
Frieze magazine / Sep 01, 2001

Promises, Promises

A review of the 2001 Superhumanism conference in London
Royal College of Art MA Thesis / Sep 01, 1999

Adventures in Tangible Computing

Referenced in the IBM Systems Journal, my 1999 MA essay on tangible computing, focusing on the work of Durrell Bishop, is still available by request. Often cited in PhD work…
Apr 11, 2015

The New School: Matter(ing) By Design

Panel discussion on techno-determinism and predictive design, with Turnstone's Rachel Abrams, OCAD futurist, Stuart Candy and the New School's Trebor Scholz...
Interaction Design Association / Feb 09, 2015

Interaction15

The Future of Work, presented to the Interaction Design Association's 2015 national conference, San Francisco...
May 12, 2014

Knight Foundation: Civic Innovation in Action

In May 2014, Knight Foundation hosted 100 civic innovators at a Civic Innovation in Action Studio in Miami to explore ways to harness talent, advance opportunity and promote robust engagement.…
Dec 16, 2013

Facebook Design Series

Members of PentaCityGroup presented the design process behind Walk NY to Facebook's New York-based design team...
Dec 13, 2013

Arup Explores Big Data

At Arup Explores Big Data, PentaCityGroup's Wendy Bell and Rachel Abrams explained Walk NY as a living, scalable database that supports a wide range of wayfinding products and integrates seamlessly…
Nov 27, 2013

IxDA Oslo

A talk about PentaCityGroup's design process for Walk NY, attended by 170+ members of the Interaction Design Association's Oslo chapter...
Nov 21, 2013

PBS St. Louis’ Stay Tuned: Mass Transit

TV interview with Turnstone in a segment of PBS St Louis' Nine Network show, Stay Tuned: Episode 202, Our Relationship With Our Ride.
Oct 10, 2013

Archtober, AIA New York

10 Things Public Policy Analysts Should Know about Design + 10 Things Designers Should Know about Public Policy, a Town+Gown panel for Archtober, 2013
Sep 18, 2013

AIGA New York

AIGA NY season opener, Fall 2013 introduced "New Walk City, Just Like We Pictured It: How PentaCityGroup Designed NYC's Streetmaps"
Sep 03, 2013

IIT Institute of Design

A presentation to the graduate students of the Illinois Institute of Technology's Institute of Design, Chicago.
Apr 04, 2013

PBS St Louis’ Stay Tuned: Public Space

TV interview with Turnstone in a segment of PBS St Louis' Nine Network show, Stay Tuned: Episode 117, The Arch Tax Vote, about the value and democratic function of public…
Oct 10, 2011

AIGA National Design Conference

Turnstone joined Zipcar and Facebook on a panel about designing services, hosted by Continuum Design, at the annual AIGA National Design Conference in Phoenix, AZ.
MOME UNIVERSITY OF ART AND DESIGN, BUDAPEST / Apr 13, 2011

MOME, Budapest

A Turnstone Talks presentation to the industrial design graduates of the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest's leading art school, about design for New York's public spaces.
Mar 07, 2011

Harvard University, Graduate School of Design

Presented to a graduate audience of the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Urban Planning Organization
Mar 01, 2011

East Harlem School

A talk about designing for New York City, presented to 5th-8th graders of The East Harlem School
Mar 17, 2010

SxSW

Turnstone joined IDEO's Ben Fullerton and Tomorrow's Thoughts Today's Liam Young to discuss Design for the Dark Side, at SxSW 2010.
Random House Publishing / Jul 23, 2009

Random House Publishing

An internal presentation to Random House: With inspiration for book publishers from all kinds of service design, Turnstone speculated that the book industry should focus on being a distributor of…
IED, Barcelona / Jul 04, 2009

Istituto Europeo di Design

Designers In the Driving Seat: Interaction Design Research Lessons from New York’s Yellow Cab Industry  
Nov 21, 2007

AIGA NY at Apple

A talk for AIGA and Apple in their series, “Pro Sessions: Design Remixed" at the Apple Store, Soho NY.