Phil Patton is a contributing editor at Departures and Esquire magazines, a contributing writer at Wired and an automotive design writer for The New York Times.
He was a regular contributor to The New York Times House and Home section and, in 1998, originated the “Public Eye” column. He has written many books including: Made in USA: The Secret History of the Things That Made America (Grove-Weidenfeld, 1992), which was named a New York Times notable book of the year; Bug: The Strange Mutations of the World's Most Famous Automobile (Simon & Schuster, 2002); Michael Graves Designs: The Art of the Everyday Object (Melcher, 2004); and Dreamland: Travels Inside the Secret World of Roswell and Area 51 (Villard, 1998). He has also written for Art in America, ARTnews, Connoisseur, Geo, Harper’s Bazaar, Men’s Journal, The New Republic, New York Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, Travel + Leisure, Traveler, The Village Voice and Vogue. Patton was Editorial Consultant on the Guggenheim Museum’s “Motorcycle” show in 1998 and Consulting Curator for the “Different Roads” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1999. In 2000 he was consultant and contributor for “On the Job: Design and the American Office” at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.