Pantone Is Making Your Monitor More Inclusive, and Other News

The Design Dispatch offers expertly written and essential news from the design world crafted by our dedicated team. Think of it as your cheat sheet for the day in design delivered to your inbox before you’ve had your coffee. Subscribe now. 

Have a news story our readers need to see? Submit it here.

Pantone Is Making Your Monitor More Inclusive

In 2012, Pantone launched the Pantone SkinTone Guide as the first scientifically based guide to help match and reproduce authentic, lifelike skin tones in photographs and prints based on thousands of human skin measurements. With inclusivity top of mind a decade later, the color authority recently unveiled the guide’s next iteration with SkinTone Validated, a new validation program for digital displays that ensures they can accurately display the guide’s entire spectrum of skin tones. Certification means that a given device can realistically represent diverse groups of people, indicating that a display is ideal for designers and color artists. Though still patent-pending, Pantone is hoping the certification program will galvanize wider inclusivity and authentic representation within the tech industry.

Takt Project Opens Satellite Lab to Foster Creativity in Japan’s City of Trees

To accompany its Tokyo headquarters, Takt Project has unveiled an ancillary studio designed for experimentation. Located in the rural northern Japanese city of Sendai on Honshu island, Tohoku Lab brings the surrounding verdant landscape inside with elements such as boulders, rocks, and greenery complementing mirrored desks and tables in the light-filled space. Abstract objects resembling clouds, mossy water features, and a wooden wall installation that acts as a display case for books reinforce the nature theme. The self-described ‘Design Think + Do Tank’ says Tohoku Lab is where the team escapes to gain new perspective and spark imagination. “The role of design should be to bring out human creativity as much as it is to provide efficiency and ease of use to the user.”

Studio RAP adorns a Rotterdam theater with red faceted panels for ideal acoustics.

Part of Hart van Zuid and a major addition to the Dutch city’s cultural sphere, Theater Zuidplein features a striking arrangement of bright red angular wall surfaces that ensure sound bounces evenly across different parts of the auditorium. The multi-faceted layout, which was designed by Studio RAP in collaboration with Arup using parametric modeling software, involved simulating different types of musical and theatrical performances, and measuring how different curvatures impacted the sound. The studio then transformed the organic shape into 6,000 aluminum composite triangles that are easy to manufacture.

A chunk of aluminum cladding fell off Chicago’s Hancock Building, scaring passersby.

Neighbors were frightened when, last week, a large chunk of aluminum cladding fell off Chicago’s Hancock Building and tumbled down to the street. Representatives for the Hearn Company, which owns and operates the skyscraper, said high winds were to blame. “This is the first time anyone can ever recall a piece of this aluminum cladding material coming off the building,” Brian Hopkins of the Hearn Company, who further described the incident as a “freak accident,” told Block Club Chicago. “It simply hasn’t happened. We don’t think this is an indication of a trend that pieces are suddenly going to start falling off the building. We have no reason to believe that.” Though he thinks the Hancock Building is safe, the company will conduct further inspections to make sure it’s not the sign of a bigger problem. 

Uruguay’s first major contemporary art museum opens in Punta del Este.

Billed as the country’s first sizable contemporary art space, the Atchugarry Museum of Contemporary Art (MACA) officially opened in the coastal resort town Punta del Este. Set on 90-acres of rolling hills, wooded areas, and water features, the Carlos Ott–designed project was spearheaded by sculptor Pablo Atchugarry and is the final in a sequence of structures built by the Fundación Pablo Atchugarry. The inaugural exhibitions feature works by Christo and Jeanne-Claude and Argentine artist León Ferrari. “I think that MACA will belong to humanity and that, like a ship loaded with art, life and dreams, it will lead us to a world of greater understanding and love,” Atchugarry says.

A Canadian farmer discovers that feeding cows seaweed can slow methane emissions.

The livestock industry accounts for nearly 15 percent of all global emissions, so finding ways to curb methane—a heat-trapping greenhouse gas—produced by cows is crucial. A scientist in Canada has discovered a way to reduce livestock emissions by as much as 40 percent. By feeding cows seaweed, the animals will digest less roughage and burp less, thus producing less methane gas. “We started testing seaweeds from coastal Australia, and it wasn’t long before the Asparagopsis species showed up, and it showed up in a big way,” Rob Kindly, chief scientist at Futurefeed, told CBS News. “It took multiple runs of testing this before we believed what we were seeing, which was we couldn’t find methane anymore.” Though Asparagopsis isn’t easily harvested, scientists are experimenting with new farming methods. 

Balenciaga is teaming up with Kanye West’s Yeezy Gap to launch a capsule collection.

In a surprise announcement, the Spanish fashion house’s creative director Demna revealed plans for a collab with the Kanye West–helmed Yeezy Gap slated to drop in June, with a second drop scheduled for later in the year. Yeezy Gap said in a statement, “This first-of-its-kind launch sees Ye’s peerless vision bring together the most influential designer of his generation, Demna, with iconic American brand, Gap.”   

Today’s attractive distractions:

One of New York City’s most beloved purveyors of Indian garments is closing.

A luminous new smartwatch by Louis Vuitton forgoes fancy techy flourishes.

Defying all odds, CD sales have actually increased for the first time in 17 years. 

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has reached an exciting new milestone.