The Kennedy Family’s Design Connection

When it comes to design-related news, my Father is one of my primary sources. He recently reminded me of Caroline Kennedy’s design connection. As she strategizes her move to the Senate, let’s not forget the role of her husband Edwin Schlossberg, founder and Principal Designer of ESI Design, an “experiential design firm.” From a 2002 article, written by Steven Heller, in Metropolis magazine, Schlossberg was called “a pioneer of experience design long before the Internet made the concept popular. The inspiration hit him in 1965 when, at the age of 19, he attended a series of lectures at the New York YMHA featuring Marshall McLuhan, Merce Cunningham, and Buckminster Fuller. It was Fuller's ideas about ‘Spaceship Earth’—how to make the world work better for more people by doing the most with less—that enthralled him.” Fuller was a former employer of Schlossberg, who also befriended the artist Jasper Johns and composer John Cage. Schlossberg was a salon by himself, and he continues to carry on those encounters in his engagement of interactive media and how people interact with information.

Related:
The Family Man by Jeffrey Hogrefe, New York Magazine