[1] The content of the site includes essays, articles, reviews, blog posts, and peer reviewed scholarship.
It is the host of the architecture and urban design publication Places (formerly a print academic journal) and the podcast Design Matters with Debbie Millman.
[2] Four prominent design writers founded the site in October 2003:[3] Rick Poynor was the founder and first editor of London-based Eye magazine, in addition to being author of many books; Michael Bierut[4] is a partner in the New York office of Pentagram and is a design critic at Yale School of Art; Jessica Helfand is also a critic at Yale and is author of numerous books; the late William Drenttel (1953 - 2013) was a designer, critic and partner with Jessica Helfand of Winterhouse Studios in Connecticut.
[5] Frequent contributors over the years have included; Steven Heller, John Foster, Adrian Shaughnessy, Dmitri Siegel, Alice Twemlow, Tom Vanderbilt, Lorraine Wild, Rob Walker, Alexandra Lange, Mark Lamster, John Thackara, Véronique Vienne, Julie Lasky and more.
[6] In 2016, Design Observer and AIGA joined forces to work in collaboration as a larger online platform for design.