The Design Issue

25 original thinkers solve all your problems

Humor us. We didn’t plan on beginning our annual design issue with a Venn diagram of psychic woe. Then we listened carefully to 25 of today’s best designers and quickly realized that their ambitions are more than ever enmeshed with solving social and other problems. Doing the right thing, they said, often leads to unexpected business opportunities, some of which they will elaborate on at Bloomberg Businessweek Design 2016 in San Francisco, on April 11. All of which is to say, if you want to discover the Next Big Thing, consider therapy—or just read on.

PESSIMISM APATHYINSECURITYBOREDOMIRRELEVANCELAZINESS Stewart Butterfield makes collaborating fun with Slack LONELINESS

Daniel Libeskind has a planfor Iraq

Vicki Dobbs Beck is creating a VRStar Wars

Paul Tazewell empowers the cast ofHamilton

James Corner’sparks satisf your inner voyeur

Craig Dykers gets us to take the stairs at SFMOMA

Autodesk’s Maria Giudicewants to make software everyone can use

● Interviews in this special section have been condensed and edited