Edited by Sarah M. Whiting & Rahul Mehrotra

The hyperconnected world of the late 20th and early 21st centuries has revealed that effortless mobility, wealth, and access for some has been attained at the cost of immobility, inequity, and displacement for others. We have entered a phase of critical backlash against globalization, which is for some a critique of international integration, for others a critique of global capitalism, and for most, a shared global concern over climate crisis. The contradictions propel us to ask: What is today’s “global”? Harvard Design Magazine’s 50th issue's theme, “Today’s Global,” aims to avoid a simple and ineffective return to a mere celebration of the local or the regional. This is a moment instead to foster a nuanced understanding of where design “sits” vis-à-vis our planet and to advance a more productive discourse on globalization. The issue relies on novel examples of design—and even the design of writing—to further today’s global from multiple vantage points.