Alex Wright is a writer, designer, and researcher who has held leadership positions at Google, Instagram, Etsy, The New York Times, and IBM, among others. He has also worked as a consultant for clients including frog design, Microsoft, Adobe, the Internet Archive, and the Long Now Foundation.
His latest book Empire of Ink: The Printers, Rogues, and Radicals Who Invented the American Newspaper will be published by Basic Books in 2026. His previous book Cataloging the World: Paul Otlet and the Birth of the Information Age (Oxford University Press, 2014) came out to positive reviews in The New Yorker, Harpers, Nature, Kirkus, andPublishers Weekly, among others. His first book Informatica: Mastering Information Through the Ages (republished in 2023 by Cornell University Press; originally published as Glut in 2007 by National Academies Press), was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “a penetrating and highly entertaining meditation on our information age and its historical roots.” Alex’s writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Believer, Salon.com, The Wilson Quarterly, The Christian Science Monitor, Harvard Magazine, and Library Journal, among others.
From 2008-2019 he was a faculty member at the School of Visual Arts’ MFA program in Interaction Design. He has also guest-lectured at Stanford University, UC-Berkeley, Columbia University and The Institute of Design-Chicago. He speaks regularly at industry events and conferences, including SxSW, UXStrat, Gartner Group, and the World Future Society. His work has won numerous industry awards, including a Webby, Cool Site of the Year, and an American Graphic Design Award.
Alex divides his time between Brooklyn, New York, and the Hudson Valley.
