The Art of Noticing is a newsletter about creativity, work, and staying human. It’s written by me, journalist and author Rob Walker. I share useful ideas, practical prompts, and unexpected inspiration that will help you pay attention to what you care about, and care about what you pay attention to. It’s for people who want to stay interested in life.
I started the newsletter as an addendum to my 2019 bookThe Art of Noticing, conceiving of it as a way to continue the book’s mission. To my delight, the newsletter has since taken on a life of its own, with reader-driven features like Icebreaker of the Week and The Dictionary of Missing Words.
And thus over time The Art of Noticing expanded. Paid subscribers get regular additional posts, full-archive access, and occasional discussion-thread posts and chats, and other surprises.
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For now I’m sticking with the low rate of $5 a month or $50 annually. A founding subscriber option helps me subsidize others (and gets you special access — I’ll pay a virtual visit to your classroom or book club, etc.).
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ABOUT ME
The Art of Noticing is written by me, Rob Walker. I’m a journalist and columnist covering creativity, business, design, technology, work, the arts, and other subjects. A longtime contributor to The New York Times, I’ve also written for Bloomberg Businessweek,The Atlantic, NewYorker.Com, Wired, Fortune, GQ, Fast Company, Design Observer, Marketplace, The Organist, and many other venues. My latest book is The Art of Noticing (Knopf, 2019). I’m on the faculty of the Products of Design MFA program and the Design Research Summer Intensive program, both at the School of Visual Arts.
From 2013 to 2018, I wrote The Workologist advice column for The New York Times Sunday Business section. Previously, I wrote the Consumed column for The New York Times Magazine, where I was a contributing writer from 2004-2012. I co-edited, with Joshua Glenn, the 2012 book Significant Objects: 100 Extraordinary Stories About Ordinary Things. My bookBuying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Arewas published in 2008. Letters From New Orleans, a collection of essays, was published in 2005. My books have been translated into nine languages, and I have contributed to many collections, anthologies, and other books.
Notable side projects include my collaboration with Ellen Susan and GK Darby, The Hypothetical Development Organization, which was part of the official U.S. presentation at the Venice Architecture Biennale; conceiving and coordinating the illustration project Spawn of Gerrymander, which received a grant from The Awesome Foundation; and curating the exhibition “As Real As It Gets” at the Apexart gallery in New York City. I’ve hosted events at MoMA and other museums, been a repeat guest on Dan Savage’s Savage Lovecast, and appeared in the documentaries Objectified and The New Radical. I live in New Orleans with my wife, E, and our dog Russell.
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