Top Design Journalists in USA (2025)

For over three decades, Angelynn Grant has shaped how professionals and publics understand design's cultural role. Her work in Communication Arts and AIGA Eye on Design bridges technical precision with narrative accessibility.

Core Coverage Areas

• Type Design Innovation: Documents cross-cultural script harmonization and technological frontiers
• Design Process Archaeology: Reveals research methodologies behind impactful projects
• Historical Continuity: Traces design legacy through contemporary practice lenses

Pitching Insights

• Lead with Cultural Impact: Successful pitches demonstrate design's role in social/cultural shifts
• Provide Process Access: Grant prioritizes behind-the-scenes decision-making documentation
• Highlight Multidisciplinary: Cross-pollination between design and other fields receives priority

Recent honors include 2022 induction into Communication Arts' Hall of Fame and 2020 AIGA Medal consideration. Her upcoming book Visible Language: Design Journalism as Cultural Practice releases Fall 2025 through MIT Press.

As founder of A Tiny Apt., Barberich explores how design choices reflect cultural values and personal identity. Her work intersects three key areas:

• Sustainable Design Innovation
  Prioritizes stories about repurposing existing materials over new product launches
• Psychological Impact of Spaces
  Seeks case studies on how home layouts affect creativity and mental health
• Historical Fashion Revival
  Interested in 20th-century garments reimagined for modern feminist contexts

Pitching Preferences

• Lead with anthropological insights rather than commercial trends
• Include multidisciplinary perspectives (designers + psychologists + historians)
• Emphasize solutions over problem statements in sustainability pitches

Key Recognition: Webby Award, AdWeek Disruptor, MIN’s 30 Most Intriguing People in Media

We find Diana Budds to be one of the most insightful design journalists working today, with a distinctive focus on how objects and spaces encode cultural values. Currently a contributing editor at Wallpaper*, her work regularly appears in The New York Times, Fast Company, and The Architect’s Newspaper.

Core Coverage Areas

• Material Innovation: Profiles of artisans developing sustainable materials (e.g., mycelium-based textiles)
• Exhibition Criticism: Analysis of architecture/design shows recontextualizing historical spaces
• Domestic Hybridity: Post-pandemic live/work environments and their design challenges

Pitching Insights

• Successful Angles:
  • Intersections of craft traditions and modern technology
  • Museum interventions in historic buildings
  • Community-led public space redesigns
• Avoid:
  • Luxury real estate developments
  • Generic product launches
  • Architectural awards coverage

“Budds’ work reminds us that every chair, gallery, and city block contains unspoken narratives about power, identity, and memory.” — Design Observer

Recent recognitions include the 2023 Center for Architecture Writing Prize and inclusion in Apartment Therapy’s “20 Design Thinkers Reshaping Our World.”

This multidisciplinary journalist and executive synthesizes design thinking with community empowerment across multiple domains:

• Primary Coverage Areas:
  • Community-driven design systems
  • Corporate cultural innovation
  • Sports organization urban impact
• Pitching Recommendations:
  • Focus on legacy-building projects with 10+ year horizons
  • Highlight rural/urban collaboration models
  • Demonstrate measurable social impact metrics

Career Highlights

• Transformed NBA/NHL franchise community strategies
• Pioneered participatory design frameworks at AIGA
• Authored 50+ articles on design economics

Current Focus: As Seattle Sounders FC President, Weber continues exploring stadiums as cultural laboratories while maintaining his Design Observer column on community empowerment through spatial design.

Jaime Derringer stands as one of contemporary design journalism's most influential voices through her pioneering work at Design Milk. As Founder and Chief Creative Officer, she shapes global design discourse while maintaining the platform's signature accessible yet authoritative tone.

Key Coverage Areas

• Emerging Materials: Tracks sustainable alternatives and smart material hybrids
• Workplace Evolution: Documents hybrid living/working spatial design innovations
• Democratized Design: Highlights premium-quality accessible products/services

Pitching Priorities

• Include technical specifications with real-world application case studies
• Emphasize cross-industry collaborations and science-informed design
• Highlight regional design movements beyond traditional hubs

Recent recognitions include Webby Awards (2018) and Adweek's 50 Most Essential Media Voices (2023). Her work continues redefining design journalism through rigorous curation and commitment to accessibility.

historical preservation, luxury real estate

This Pulitzer Center–supported journalist combines architectural expertise with social advocacy, making her essential reading for design professionals and community planners alike.

Core Coverage Areas

• Sustainable Residential Design: Tracks innovations in low-carbon housing solutions
• Urban Adaptive Reuse: Specializes in cost analyses of renovation vs. new construction
• Design Equity: Examines architecture's role in addressing systemic inequalities

Pitching Preferences

• Seeking: Case studies with verifiable environmental impact metrics
• Avoid: Luxury product launches without social value propositions
• Best Approach: Email with "Regional Design Innovation" in subject line

"Great design journalism doesn't just document spaces—it reveals how we might better inhabit our world." - Jennifer Baum Lagdameo, 2024 Design Symposium Keynote

Career Highlights

• 12+ years reporting across 4 continents
• 200+ published articles with 85% featuring original field research
• Mentored 23 emerging writers through Dwell's fellowship program

Mark McMenamin (1957-2022) redefined design journalism through four decades of rigorous market analysis and trend forecasting. As lead market editor for Interior Design Magazine, he specialized in:

• Commercial Innovation: Tracked material science breakthroughs across 120+ trade shows annually
• Sustainable Transitions: Pioneered circular economy metrics for retail and hospitality sectors
• Technology Integration: Chronicled AR/VR adoption in spatial design workflows since 2016

Pitching Priorities

• Data-Rich Case Studies: Requires minimum 18-month performance metrics
• Cross-Industry Applications: Bonus if linking healthcare to hospitality or education
• Legacy System Upgrades: Especially pre-1990s infrastructure retrofits

“Good design journalism doesn’t just report trends—it gives architects the tools to build tomorrow’s language of space.”

Avoid pitching celebrity projects or residential DIY content. McMenamin’s legacy lives through his 12,000+ bylines and the Mark McMenamin Precision Journalism Fellowship at Parsons School of Design.

As Architectural Digest's West Coast Editor, Mayer Rus decodes design's cultural significance through:

• Accessible Luxury: Profiles collaborations democratizing high design
• California Innovation: Spotlights sustainable materials and indoor/outdoor living
• Historical Context: Connects contemporary trends to design heritage

Pitching Insights

• Focus on Narrative: Rus prioritizes stories where spaces reveal personal/cultural identities
• Avoid Generic Products: Position items as artifacts of larger design movements
• Highlight Craftsmanship: Emphasize regional techniques and material innovation

Recent honors include 2024 AD100 Hall of Fame induction and multiple National Magazine Award nominations. His work continues shaping how both industry insiders and design enthusiasts understand spatial storytelling.

Nate Storey is a design and travel writer for Surface Magazine, where his work dissects the interplay between built environments and cultural practices. Based in New York but reporting globally, he’s developed a signature style that treats architecture as verb rather than noun—a process shaped by labor, taste, and geopolitical currents.

Current Focus Areas

• Culinary Infrastructure: How restaurant design adapts to supply chain shifts (e.g., his Michelin-starred sushi chef profile)
• Post-Pandemic Public Spaces: Case studies on parks, transit hubs, and hotels renegotiating preservation with accessibility
• Material Innovation: Reporting on sustainable alternatives to concrete and steel, particularly in coastal cities

Pitching Tips

• Lead With Constraints: Storey’s best stories emerge from limitations—a chef’s budget, a city’s zoning laws, a material’s carbon footprint. Avoid pitches that assume unlimited resources.
• Ground Trends in Labor: His ASME-nominated piece on Dubai’s Expo 2020 succeeded by profiling migrant workers’ engineering improvisations rather than the event’s aesthetics.
• Avoid: Luxury real estate profiles, “disruptive” tech solutions lacking cultural context, or stories prioritizing aesthetics over community impact.

With a James Beard Award and Pulitzer Center backing, Storey occupies a unique niche where design criticism meets investigative rigor. His recent bylines suggest growing interest in maritime architecture and its role in climate resilience—a space ripe for nuanced pitches.

Sarah Archer (Cold War Correspondent/Substack) combines design scholarship with cultural criticism, specializing in 20th-century material history and its modern reverberations. Based in Philadelphia, her work for The New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, and literary journals explores how everyday objects encode societal values.

Pitching Priorities

• Historical Parallels: She favors stories connecting archival findings to current trends, like her analysis of 1950s appliance ads predicting smart home tech
• Underrepresented Creators: Successful pitches highlight forgotten female designers, as seen in her Jane Korman Museum retrospective research
• Cross-Cultural Design: Her book Catland exemplifies interest in Japanese/Western aesthetic dialogues

Achievements Highlights

• 2024 Pushcart Prize nominee for fiction exploring domestic material culture
• Quarterfinalist for Academy Nicholl Fellowship in screenwriting
• Featured commentator in CNN’s The Many Lives of Martha Stewart documentary

As Gray Magazine's senior design correspondent, Kendall specializes in sustainable architecture and material science. Her award-winning work combines technical analysis with accessible storytelling, particularly focused on:

• Circular economy solutions: Examines reusable building systems
• Urban spatial equity: Advocates for inclusive public spaces

Recent recognition includes the 2024 Sustainable Media Prize from the American Institute of Architects.

Steven Heller is a preeminent voice in design journalism, currently authoring The Daily Heller for PRINT Magazine. With over 200 books on design history and practice, his work bridges academic rigor and cultural critique.

Key Coverage Areas

• Design History: Analyzes 20th-century movements through contemporary lenses, e.g., his 2025 series on Bauhaus’s influence on startup branding.
• Political Visual Rhetoric: Examines how institutions use design to wield power, as seen in his coverage of protest graphics during the 2024 elections.
• Education Innovation: Chronicles shifts in design pedagogy, including AI’s role in classroom critiques.

Pitching Recommendations

Do:

• Connect trends to historical precedents (e.g., NFT art and 1980s mail art networks)
• Provide visual examples with clear provenance
• Highlight underrepresented designers shaping institutional change

Avoid:

• Pure product launches without cultural context
• Speculative design concepts lacking real-world application
• Trend reports disconnected from societal impacts

Achievements: Recipient of the Smithsonian National Design Award and Art Directors Club Hall of Fame honors, Heller’s memoir Growing Up Underground (2022) redefined narratives about countercultural design. His upcoming book Branding Democracy (2026) explores visual systems in political movements.