Scratching the Surface
Welcome to Scratching the Surface, the brand new design podcast interested in the intersection of criticism and practice hosted by Jarrett Fuller. Released weekly, each episode will feature conversations with designers, writers, critics, educators and people who do a combination of these. We’ll talk about the role of design criticism, the state of design writing, and try to figure out new ways to talk about graphic design.
Series Titles
-
Welcome to Scratching the Surface, the brand new design podcast interested in the intersection of criticism and practice hosted by Jarrett Fuller. Released weekly, each episode will feature conversations with designers, writers, critics, educators and people who do a combination of these. We’ll talk about the role of design criticism, the state of design writing, and try to figure out new ways to talk about graphic design. -
In the first episode of Scratching the Surface, Jarrett talks with designer and writer Rob Giampietro. Rob is currently the Design Lead for Material Design at Google New York. In this conversation, we talk about how Rob approaches writing and designing, design as a critical activity, and the design writing he’d like to see more of.
-
In this week’s episode of Scratching the Surface, Jarrett talks with architecture critic Alexandra Lange. Alexandra is currently writing for Curbed and has previously written for publications like The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Dwell. In this conversation, we meet in a Brooklyn coffee shop to talk about how one becomes a critic, the role of criticism within the architecture profession, writing for an audience, and Alexandra’s own writing process.
-
On this week’s episode of Scratching the Surface, I’m joined by the design writer Steven Heller! Heller is the author or co-author of over one hundred books on design and visual culture, co-chair of the School of Visual Arts MFA Designer as Author program, and helped start SVA’s Design Criticism and Interaction Design programs. Steven and I talk about his career, design writing, and why most publications don’t need graphic design critics.
-
On this week’s episode, I talk with the designer and writer Michael Rock. Michael is the co-founder and creative director at 2×4, teaches at Yale and Columbia, and writes for The New York Times T Magazine. This summer, I visited Michael at 2×4’s New York headquarters to talk about his own history, how he thinks about his roles as a designer and writer, the importance of theory in design practice, and writing about design for a general audience.
-
Michael Bierut needs no introduction. As a partner at Pentagram since 1990, he’s worked on projects ranging from logos and environmental signage systems, books and packaging for clients including Verizon, The New York Times, MIT Media Lab, and Hillary Clinton. But Michael is also a prolific writer, having co-founded Design Observer in 2003 and co-editing the Looking Closer series, and in this episode, I talk with Michael about that writing. We talk about the origins of Design Observer, how he started writing, and how the public’s growing awareness of graphic design has changed the discourse.
-
Sara M. Watson is a technology critic and currently the writer in residence at Digital Asia Hub, a Research Fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, and an affiliate with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. Last month, she published Toward a Constructive Technology Criticism, a meta-critique of technology criticism that’s very similar to what I’m thinking about with design criticism. In this episode, I talk to Sara about her piece and her thoughts on criticism, the similarities between writing about technology and design, and the role of criticism under a Trump ...
-
David Reinfurt is a design polymath operating at the intersection of design, publishing, curation, and exhibitions. His studio, O-R-G, is now a small software company “that programs, publishes, and sells apps, websites, screensavers, and other small chunks of code.” With Stuart Bailey, he’s the co-founder of Dexter Sinister and with Bailey and Angie Keefer, he publishes The Serving Library. In July, I interviewed David about his work across mediums and how they intersect, the fluid boundaries of graphic design and the type of writing around design he enjoys the most.
-
Jessica Helfand is a designer, writer, podcaster, and publisher. She cofounded Design Observer in 2002 with Rick Poynor, Michael Bierut, and William Drenttel and most recently wrote the book, Design: The Invention of Desire. In this episode, the first part of a two-part conversation, Jessica and I talk about the origins of Design Observer, how she started writing, writing about design in relationship to culture, and how emerging mediums like video and podcasts can provide a new platform for design criticism.
-
In my second conversation with Jessica Helfand — recorded earlier this month when Jessica was in Baltimore — we talk about Winterhouse (the studio she co-founded with William Drenttel), publishing, the role of design (and design criticism) in Trump’s America, and what she’s learned in her first semester teaching design at the Yale School of Management.
-
Armin Vit is the co-founder of UnderConsideration with his wife Bryony Gomez-Palacio, the site behind popular blogs Brand New, FPO, and Speak Up. In this conversation, I talk to Armin about how he started writing, why he shut down Speak Up in 2009, why everyone is critiquing logos now, and how social media is changing the design discourse.
-
Khoi Vinh is currently Principle Designer at Adobe, Design Chair at Wildcard and co-founder of Kidpost and previously co-founded Mixel and was the design director of The New York Times online. Khoi’s site, Subtraction.com, was one of the first blogs I started reading when I started designing over a decade ago and in this episode, I talk to him about how he started blogging, how writing has influenced his design career, and the the need for a more rigorous criticism around digital product design.
-
On this week’s episode, I talk with Bryn Smith, a designer, writer, and editor based in New York City. Bryn is a graduate of SVA’s Design Criticism MFA and the co-author of the new book, Twenty Over Eighty. We talk about her experience in SVA’s program, what a design critic could do at major publications, and how to use design artifacts to write about larger cultural issues.
-
Prem Krishnamurthy is a designer, curator, and writer. He is a founding principle, with Adam Michaels, of the New York design studio Project Projects and founder and curator of P!, an experimental exhibition space in New York’s Chinatown. Additionally, Prem is an editor for the art journal Paper Monument and on the board of directors for Triple Canopy. In August, I visited Project Projects’s office to talk with Prem about this range of projects. Over the course of the conversation, we talk about the relationship between design and writing, the role of authorship, the false divide between form and content, ...
-
Jon Sueda is a designer, curator, and educator. He is the founder of the Stripe, a graphic design studio based in San Francisco specializing in printed material, identity, and exhibition work and the Chair of the MFA Design program at California College of the Arts. He’s also curated the exhibitions for the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, the 25th International Graphic Design Biennial in Brno, Czech Republic, and SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco. In this conversation, Jon and I talk about his design background, the intersection of graphic design and curation, and studying under critics like Lorraine Wild ...
-
Rianne Petter and Mark Mulder are designers and researchers from the Netherlands. The couple operates independent practices that span graphic design, research, writing, and education. Last fall, the couple visited Baltimore to lead a weekend workshop on design research of Maryland Institute College of Art’s graduate graphic design department and I sat down with them at the end of the weekend to talk about their own practice, the role of research in the graphic design process, and the differences between the design discourse of the Netherlands and the United States.
-
Ruben Pater, working under the name Untold Stories, describes his work as creating “visual narratives about geopolitical issues” and creating “new relations between journalism and design.” He most recently is the author of the book, The Politics of Design, where Pater explores the cultural and political context of the typography, colors, photography, symbols, and information graphics that we use every day. In this conversation, I talk with Ruben about the book and the relationship between design and journalism, showcasing his process as the artifact, the importance of studying design outside of the traditional Western canon, and why he still calls himself ...
-
Anne Quito is a designer and writer currently working as a design reporter at Quartz. Anne is the founder of the design studio Design Lab 360 and a recent graduate of SVA’s Design Criticism program. In this episode, I talk with Anne about her design background and her journey into writing, how to write about design for a general audience, and how she wrote her own job description when she joined the Quartz team as a “design reporter.”
-
Andy Chen and Waqas Jawaid are the founders of Isometric Studio, a New York design studio that promotes inclusion, equality & progress. Andy and Waqas were thesis critics at MICA in December and I sat down with them while they were in Baltimore to talk about their backgrounds in sociology and architecture influence their design practice, the value of design criticism in the contemporary design profession, and what type of design writing they’d like to see more of.
-
Liz Danzico is part designer, part writer, and part educator. She’s currently the creative director at NPR, where she oversees both the visual and user experience of NPR’s digital platforms and content; chair and co-founder of SVA’s MFA in Interaction Design program; and has written about design for publications like Eye, Fortune, and Interactions Magazine as well as her own site, Bobulate. In this episode, I talk to Liz about the connections between design and writing, the role of criticism in her own work, and intersections between technology, media, journalism, and design.
-
In 2013, Jack Cheng self-published his first book, a novel called These Days, on Kickstarter. Before that, Jack was working as a designer in advertising in New York City while working on the book during his nights and weekends. Now based in Detroit, Jack just published his new book, See You in the Cosmos. In this episode, I talk with Jack about his transition from designing to writing, the similarities between designing digital products and writing fiction, and the intellectual questions he’s asking himself in his work.
-
Helen Armstrong is a designer, educator, and writer. She’s published two anthologies of design theory as well as a book on user-generated design and is currently associate professor of graphic design North Carolina State University. Prior to studying design, Helen’s studies focused on literature, English, and critical theory and she’s since applied what she learned in her previous studies to graphic design. In this episode, I talk with Helen about her transition from academia to graphic design, the intersection of theory and practice, and the value in criticism and theory for practicing graphic designers.
-
Francisco Laranjo is a graphic designer based in Portugal and publisher of Modes of Criticism, a journal and research platform interested in critical graphic design. His writing has also been published on Design Observer, Eye, Creative Review, Grafik. In this episode, Francisco and I talk about Modes of Criticism and his goals for the project, parsing terms like critical and speculative graphic design, and how to use graphic design to critique politics, colonialization, and culture.
-
Louise Sandhaus is a designer, educator, and writer based in Los Angeles. She teaches a variety of courses at CalArts and in 2013 published Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires, & Riots, a book of graphic design from California. In this episode, Louise and I talk about how she stumbled into a critical theory class that changed her approach to design and her entire life, as well as form as language, and how writing a design history book changed how she designs.
-
Sara Hendren is a designer, artist, writer, and professor whose work centers around adaptive and assistive technologies, prosthetics, inclusive design, accessible architecture, and related ideas. She teaches inclusive design practices at Olin College in Massachusetts and writes and edits Abler, her site to collect and comment on art, adaptive technologies and prosthetics, and the future of human bodies in the built environment. In this episode, Sara and I talk about her own background and using design to manifest ideas in the world, the role of writing in her own design practice, and how teaches these ideas with her students.
-
Randy Nakamura is a designer, researcher, and one of my favorite writers from Emigre. His writing has appeared in Design Observer, Emigre, Task, Modes of Criticism, and Idea Magazine and he’s worked as a designer at Jon Sueda’s studio, Stripe, and served as design director at The Grateful Palate. He’s currently at PhD candidate in the Critical Studies program at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design. In this rare interview, I talk with Randy about his journey from biology to design, how he started writing for Emigre, the similarities between architecture and design criticism, and how the design discourse has changed ...
-
Molly Heintz is the chair of SVA’s MA Design Research program and co-founder of the editorial consultancy Superscript. Prior to this, she studied classics and archeology and has worked at the architecture firms Gensler and Rockwell Group. In this episode, Molly and I talk about her journey from archaeology to design, how to get more designers interested in criticism, writing for a general audience, and the goals of SVA’s design criticism program.
-
Peter Bil’ak is a designer, writer, type designer, and publisher based in the Netherlands. My introduction to Peter’s work was through Dot Dot Dot, the magazine he co-founded and published with Stuart Bailey in the early 2000s and in this episode, we talk about the origins of that magazine as well as his new publication, Works That Work. We also talk about how he started writing and how that influences his work as a designer, shifting designing criticism from the perspective of the maker to that of the user, and the general representation of design magazines.
-
Kenneth FitzGerald is a designer, writer, and educator. His writing has appeared in Emigre, Speak Up, Design Observer, and was collected in the 2010 book of essays, Volume. He’s also on the founding board of AIGA’s new academic journal, Dialectic, and steering committee member of the AIGA Design Educators Community. In this episode, Kenneth and I talk about his early writing for Emigre and how the design discourse has changed over the course of his career, the role of design criticism, and how he gets his students interested in writing and thinking critically about their work.
-
Emily Smith is a designer, researcher, educator, and visual anthropologist based in Berlin. She is currently professor and Head of Communication Design at BTK University of Art and Design where she teaches a range of interdisciplinary, research-based design courses and lectures in design, fine art, anthropology, and architectural academic settings. In this episode, Emily and I talk about her journey through design to anthropology, how graphic design is like choreography, form as a container for ideas, and how research and anthropological processes can play a role in both practice and discourse.
-
Abbott Miller is a designer, writer, and a partner at Pentagram where he leads a team designing identities, exhibitions, and books. Before Pentagram, Abbott ran a studio, Design Writing Research, with Ellen Lupton and wrote for publications like Eye, Print, and I.D. A monograph of his design and writing, called Design and Content, was published in 2014. In this conversation, Abbott and I talk about where his interest in critical theory came from and how he’s worked to incorporate it into his design work, using writing to find new ways into design, and how his various interests have come together ...
-
In a special mini-series for the month of June, I’ll be interviewing a few of my professors at MICA who advised my thesis project and helped shape this podcast. First up is Kristian Bjørnard, a designer, educator, and sustainabilitist, who I met two years ago when I took his Interactive Design class. Kristian and I bonded over a shared love of design theory, reading, history. In this episode, Kristian and I talk about his background and how he got into design, bringing theory and criticism into the classroom, and his deep interested in sustainable graphic design and what that means ...
-
In the second episode of my miniseries interviewing my professors and advisors from MICA, I talk to my writing professor, Abraham Burickson. In addition to teaching writing at MICA, Abe is also an architect, poet, and performance artist who runs Odyssey Works, a performance group that creates durational performances for audiences of one. In this conversation, Abe and I talk about his background the relationship between design, writing, and performance, design fictions, and creating experiences.
-
To continue my series interviewing the professors from MICA who have helped shape this podcast, this week I talk to my critical theory professor Ian Bourland. In addition to teaching at MICA, Ian is an art historian and critic whose work focuses on the diaspora, photography, and the global contemporary. In this conversation, Ian and I talk about his background and interest in art, the role of the critic in the art world, what a new type of design criticism could look like, and how designers can think about their work critically within a larger cultural context.
-
In the final episode of my June series on my professors, I talk to the co-director of MICA’s MFA graphic design program Ellen Lupton. In addition to her work at MICA, Ellen is the Senior Curator of Contemporary Design at Cooper Hewitt, and a prolific author of notable design books like Thinking with Type, Type on Screen, and Graphic Design: The New Basics. In our conversation, recorded a few days after graduation, I talk with Ellen about her own career as a designer, writer, curator, and educator, how she thinks about writing for emerging designers, and how the design discourse ...
-
Teal Triggs is an educator, historian, and designer. She is currently Associate Dean in the School of Communication at Royal College of Art in London and editor-in-chief of Communication Design. She’s written extensively on the intersection of design and popular culture for publications like Eye, Visual Communication, and Design Issues. In this episode, Teal and I talk about her background in design and history, the role of research, and looking at design history beyond the canonical objects.
-
John Caserta is a designer and educator based in Providence, Rhode Island. He is an Associate Professor and former Department Head of the Graphic Design Department at The Rhode Island School of Design and founder of The Design Office, a work and project space for independent designers in downtown Providence. In this episode, John and I talk about the changes RISD’s made in their undergraduate graphic design program, critical making, and his background in journalism and design.
-
Jack Self is an architect and writer based in London. He recently founded The Real Foundation, an architecture practice and curatorial institute. The Foundation’s flagship publication, The Real Review is a quarterly magazine about architecture, material culture, and what it means to live today. In our conversation, Jack and I talk about his career as both architect and writer, the goals and ideas behind The Real Review, and the types of discourses we’d like to see around architecture and design.
-
Juliette Cezzar is a designer, writer, and educator. She’s currently an Assistant Professor of Communication Design at the New School’s Parsons School of Design, where she was the Director of the BFA Communication Design and BFA Design & Technology programs from 2011–2014. She served as President of the board of directors of AIGA/NY from 2014–2016 and recently finished a sabbatical where she focused on the relationship between design and the transmission of cultural ideas. In this episode, Juliette and I talk about her first job working for Peter Eisenman, how writing and teaching influence her design practice, and how to ...
-
Ian Lynam is a designer, writer, teacher, and publisher currently based in Tokyo. He runs his own design studio, teaches at Temple University Japan and Meme Design school, is chair of VCFA’s MFA graphic design program, writes for magazines like Idea and Slanted, and runs the boutique type foundry and online shop Wordshape. In this conversation, Ian and I talk about his early interest in writing and designing zines, the state of design discourse and the problems with the sort of design writing you find on sites like Medium today as well as the role of writing in his own ...
-
Mr. Jeffery Keedy is a designer, writer, and educator. He studied at Cranbrook and since 1985, has been on faculty at CalArts. Originally trained as a designer, Mr. Keedy started writing early in his career and became a frequent contributor for Emigre and his writing has appeared in publications like Eye, I.D., and the AIGA Journal. When I discovered Emigre, Mr. Keedy’s writings were always some of my favorite so this was a special conversation for me. In this episode, we talk about his early design education and how he started writing, how the design discourse has changed and fragmented, ...
-
Mark Lamster is the architectural critic of the Dallas Morning News, a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and a professor in the architecture school at the University of Texas at Arlington. He’s the author of several books, and is currently finishing a biography of architect Philip Johnson. In this episode, Mark and I talk about how he started writing about architecture, how making books is like making architecture, what it’s like writing about architecture for a daily newspaper, and how technology is changing the role of the critic.
-
Tony Brook is an award-winning designer, creative director, and publisher. He is the co-founder of the London-based design studio Spin and in 2010, he co-founded with Adrian Shaughnessy the design-focused publishing venture Unit Editions. In this episode, Tony and I talk about his early interest in design and how he is continually reinventing Spin, the origins of Unit Editions and his work in publishing, as well as design’s obsession with nostalgia and how that influences design criticism.
-
Hannah Ellis is a designer, writer, and lecturer in London, England where her work explores the intersection between graphic design and education, through publication and editorial design, writing, lectures, workshops and gallery-based pieces. She’s a lecturer in the design department of Sheffield Hallam University and writes frequently for the Creative Review. In this episode, Hannah and I talk about her dissatisfaction in working as a designer and her transition to writing and teaching, as well as her recent piece on Monographs for Creative Review, and what’s missing from the contemporary design discourse.
-
Theo Inglis is a freelance graphic designer and writer based in London. He is a recent graduate of the Critical Writing in Art and Design MA at The Royal College of Art and currently writes for Grafik and Monotype. In this episode, Theo and I talk about his recent MA thesis, An Absurd Machine: Branding, Design, and the City, how he got started writing while he was working as a designer, the types of design writing we want to see more of, and the differences between design criticism, theory, and journalism.
-
Geoff Manaugh’s blog BLDGBLOG, which he started in 2004 to talk about architecture and landscapes, has been one of my favorite blogs for years. He’s also the author of the book, A Burglar’s Guide to the City, which was optioned for television by CBS, and has contributed to publications like The New York Times, The Atlantic, Cabinet Magazine, The New Yorker, and Domus. In this episode, Geoff and I talk about how architecture became the center of a venn diagram of his various interests, the changing state of architecture discourse, working with editors, and how to look at design through ...
-
Elizabeth Glickfeld is a design writer and lecturer currently based in London. She’s the co-founder, along with Anna Bates, of Dirty Furniture, a new kind of design magazine that looks at “when design leaves the showroom” by focusing each issue on a specific piece of furniture. She’s also written for various publications including Eye, Design Issues, Domus, and Frieze. Previously, she was a student in The Royal College of Art’s Critical Writing in Art and Design program and was a lecturer in design theory and history at Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia. In this episode, Elizabeth and I talk about ...
-
Karrie Jacobs writes about cities, buildings, and design. She’s written for publications like Metropolis, Travel and Leisure, The New York Times, ID, and Fortune. She was also the founding editor-in-chief of Dwell and the founding executive editor of Colors. In this episode, Karrie and I talk about working at her college paper with Matt Groening and Lynda Barry, how she started writing about design, working at Dwell and Colors, and how design writing has changed over the course of her career.
-
Paola Antonelli is the senior curator of the Department of Architecture and Design and the Director of R&D at MoMA where she’s expanded the traditional definition of design by acquiring pieces like the @ sign, the original emoji set, and Minecraft. Originally trained as an architect, Antonelli has written and edited for publications like Domus, Metropolis, ID, and Harper’s Bazaar and was previously taught at the University of California and Harvard University Graduate School of Design. In this wide ranging episode, Paola and I talk about design as a methodology, the problems with design education, and why she wants to ...
-
Doug Thomas is a designer, historian, writer, and teacher. He’s the author of the new book, Never Use Futura and an Assistant Professor in Brigham Young University’s graphic design department. After graduating with a degree in graphic design, Doug continued his education by getting a masters degree in history at the University of Chicago where he began his research on typography history. Doug and I met while we were students in the MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art, where he was turning his historical work into a book. In this episode, Doug and I talk about the book ...
-
In a special one-year anniversary episode, Michael Bierut returns to the show and turn the tables to interview me. One year after I started the podcast and fifty interviews later, Michael and I talk about my own background and why I started the podcast, my graduate school experience, video essays, how the podcast has changed, and what I’ve learned about design writing over the last year.
-
Elliott Earls is a graphic designer, performance artist, and the artist-in-residence in Cranbrook’s 2D Design program. He also produces the YoutTube series Studio Practice, a “no bullshit resource for those things that animate the artist and designer’s studio.” In this episode, Elliott and I talk about experimental graphic design, Cranbrook’s interesting critique format, and how he thinks about his own work, as well as working outside the preconceived styles and movements, how to connect theory and practice without letting the theory get in the way of the making, and how teaching at Cranbrook relates to his own art and design ...
-
Adrian Shaughnessy is a designer, writer, and publisher. Along with Tony Brook, he co-founded Unit Editions, an independent publishing company that specializes in design books and monographs for people like Paula Scher and Herb Lubalin. He’s written for publications like Eye and Design Observer and his collected essays were published as a book, also called Scratching the Surface, in 2013. In this episode, Adrian and I talk about his transition from designing to writing, how the design discourse has changed over the course of his career, and the value of a strong design criticism.
-
Sarah Rich is a writer, editor, and brand consultant based in Oakland, California. She’s written about design and food for publications like Dwell, The Atlantic, Wired, and Fast Company. With Wendy MacNaughton, Debbie Millman, and Maria Popova, she recently edited Leave Me Alone with the Recipes, book about the art, life and cooking of graphic designer Cipe Pineles. I first came to Sarah’s work when she was editor of Reform, a Medium publication that looked at design in the widest sense. In this episode, Sarah and I talk about how she started writing about design, the beginning and ending of ...
-
Manuel Lima is a designer, author, and speaker specializing in information visualization as well as a design lead at Google New York. He’s taught data visualization at Parsons School of Design and is the author of the books, The Books of Trees, The Book of Circles, and Visual Complexity. In this episode, Manuel and I talk about his journey into design and interest in interaction design and information graphics as well as his career as both an author and practicing designer, writing outside academic discourses, and how to bring in other areas of study in design scholarship.
-
Anne Burdick is a graphic designer, writer, researcher, and educator. She’s the chair of the Art Center College of Design’s Media Design Program and has written for publications like Emigre and Eye. In this episode, Anne and I talk about her own background and journey through design — which we discovered had many parallels to my own design career. We also talk about new modes of practice, the relationships between writing and designing, and asking the big questions of design’s role in society and culture.
-
James Goggin is a designer, educator, and writer. He runs his own design studio with his partner, Shan James, under the name Practise and recently joined the faculty of RISD’s graphic design department. He previously worked as Director of Design, Publishing and New Media at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and has taught at Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem, The Netherlands, and at ECAL in Switzerland. His writing on design has appeared in numerous publications and he currently serves as art director and is on the editorial board of the architecture publication, Flat Out. In this episode, James and I ...
-
Penelope Dean is an architectural theorist and critic whose research focuses on contemporary architectural culture with an emphasis on the exchanges between architecture and the allied design fields. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts and is the founding editor of Flat Out, a fascinating new independent magazine of architecture and design criticism. In this episode, Penelope and I talk about the concept behind Flat Out as well as her own background moving from practice to academia, audiences for design criticism, and how to inject more humor ...
-
Alice Twemlow is a design writer, critic, and educator. She was the co-founder and chair of SVA’s Design Criticism program in New York City and is now the Head of the Design Curating and Writing Program at the Design Academy Eindhoven. She also recently published the book, Sifting the Trash, which is a fascinating history of design criticism. In this episode, Alice and I talk about her interest in design and writing, the history of design criticism and how its evolved, and the collapsing borders between the various design disciplines.
-
Sara De Bondt is a designer, educator, and publisher. She runs her own independent design practice working with cultural clients and is the co-founder of Occasional Papers, a small publishing company focusing on publishing affordable books devoted to the histories of architecture, art, design, film, and literature. The Walker Art Center called Sara “the epitome of a cultural designer, combining a love of contemporary typography with a deep investigation into the history of graphic design. Through her design practice, which consists of client-based work, designing and editing books, and curating conferences, she is consistently contributing to the critical discourse.” In ...
-
Rory Hyde is an architect, curator and writer based in London. His work is focuses on new forms of design practice and redefining the role of the designer today. Currently, he’s Curator of Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism at the Victoria and Albert Museum and is the author of the book, Future Practice, a collection of interviews about the edge of architecture. In this wide-ranging conversation, Rory and I talk about his early career as an architect and interning at Volume magazine, the differences between practice and curation, and the types of design criticism he’s drawn to and wants to see ...
-
Paul Soulellis is a designer, writer, and educator. After spending twenty years working as a designer, fifteen of those years under his own studio, Soulellis Studios, Paul recently has shifted his work into a more expanded and experimental practice. In 2014, while part of the New Museum’s incubator, he started Counterpractice, his new design studio, and began publishing his now-ongoing project Library of the Printed Web. He also recently joined the faculty at RISD in their graphic design department. In this episode, Paul and I talk about the significance of blogging to his work, building new types of graphic design ...
-
Mitch Goldstein is a designer, artist, and educator based in Rochester, NY. He is an Assistant Professor the School of Design at the Rochester Institute of Technology, works in collaboration with his wife Anne Jordan on client projects, and maintains an ongoing art practice focusing on experimental darkroom photography. He also co-hosted the design podcast Though Process and has written and lectured extensively on design and design education. In this episode, Mitch and I talk about our evolving definitions of the words ‘graphic design,’ critique methods in the classroom, and the problems with contemporary design discourse.
-
Dmitri Siegel is a creative director, designer, and writer. He’s currently the Vice President of Global Brand for Sonos and was previously Executive Creative Director at Patagonia. He also was one of my favorite writers of the Emigre-era, where his writing appeared in Emigre, Design Observer, and Dot Dot Dot. In this episode, Dmitri and I talk about his interest in writing about design, going from writing for Emigre to leading design at Sonos, and how design criticism has changed over the course of his career.
-
Paul Ford is a writer, programmer, educator, and technologist. He is currently the co-founder of Postlight, a digital product studio in New York and teaches at the School of Visual Arts. He’s written for publications like Harper’s, New York, Medium, and The Morning News and is a frequent commentator on technology and the internet. In 2015, he published “What is Code?” for Bloomberg Businessweek, an issue-length essay explaining programming to a mass audience. In this episode, Paul and I talk about his childhood interest in computers and books, the early days of the web and building his own blogging software, ...
-
Stuart Bertolotti-Bailey is a designer, writer, editor, and publisher. He co-founded Dot Dot Dot with Peter Bil’ak in 2000 and began working with David Reinfurt, under the name Dexter Sinister, in 2006. Along with Reinfurt and Angie Keefer, he’s the co-founder and publisher of The Serving Library. Late last year, he was appointed Head of Design at the ICA in London. In this conversation, Stuart and I talk about his early design career and working with Richard Hollis, the relationships he sees between design and writing, and how his career is influencing his approach to his new job.
-
James Langdon is a designer, writer, and curator. He is one of six directors of Eastside Projects, an artist-run exhibition space in Birmingham, England, runs an independent design practice, and has written for publications like The Serving Library and Bricks from the Kiln. He’s a professor in the communication design department at HfG Karlsruhe and in 2013, he founded the itinerant School for Design Fiction, working with students to investigate the storytelling inherent in the design process. He’s also written and researched extensively on the work of Norman Potter. In this episode, we talk about how Dot Dot Dot sparked ...
-
Justin McGuirk is a writer, critic and curator. He is currently the chief curator at the Design Museum in London and a faculty member in the Design Curating & Writing program at Design Academy Eindhoven. Previously, he was director of Strelka Press, design critic for The Guardian, and the editor of Icon magazine. In 2014, he published Radical Cities: Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture. In this episode, Justin and I talk about the similarities between writing and curating, modes of criticism, and design’s troubled relationship to problem solving.
-
Rob Walker is a writer and journalist covering design, technology, business, the arts, and other subjects. His writing on design has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Design Observer, and The Atlantic and was featured in Gary Hustwit’s film Objectified. He currently writes the Workologist column for The New York Times and is writing a book about attention. In this episode, Rob and I talk about how he brought design into his writing beat, wrestling with the consequences of design in the world, and why he doesn’t like calling himself a critic.
-
John L. Walters is the editor of Eye Magazine. Before becoming the editor in 1999, John worked as a writer and editor on a variety of publications and newspapers, including The Architectural Review and The Guardian, and previously was a musician, touring England with his band, Landscape. In this episode, John and I talk about the transition from music to writing, how he started writing about graphic design, and how the design discourse has changed over his nearly twenty years of editing Eye and how the magazine has to both evolve and stay true to its identity.
-
Joe Potts is a graphic designer, educator, artist, and writer working with found and synthesized images, sound, typography, and language. He teaches typography and graphic design at Otis College of Art and Design and the University of Southern California, and is the founding director of the Southland Institute (for critical, durational, and typographic post-studio practices). In this episode, Joe and I talk about the Southland Institute, both why it exists and what it’s trying to do, the economic burdens of design education, and the value of building an interdisciplinary practice.
-
Bryan Boyer is a partner at Dash Marshall, an architecture and strategic design studio based in New York and Detroit, where he leads their Civic Futures practice. Bryan studied architecture and interior renovation before heading to Finland to help start the Helsinki Design Lab, where he worked on a team that helped improve public institutions through design. In this episode, Bryan and I talk about the value of an architecture degree, the ideas behind strategic design, and the limits of design thinking.
-
Shannon Mattern is Associate Professor in the School of Media Studies at The New School in New York. Her writing and teaching focuses on archives, libraries, and other media spaces; media infrastructures; spatial epistemologies; and mediated sensation and exhibition. She’s the author of multiple books and writes a regular column for Places. In this episode, Shannon and I talk about what media studies is and she got interested in it, how to connect theory and artifact — in both teaching and writing — and relationships between the built environment and the digital world.
-
Aggie Toppins is a graphic designer and educator whose work centers around active citizenship and intellectual pursuit. She’s currently teaches at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and maintains an independent studio practice publishing zines, collages, and a fun series called Critical Theory Cocktails. In this episode, Aggie and I talk about her introduction to critical theory and how she introduces challenging texts to her students, how her time at MICA inspired her to start teaching, and why it’s important to decolonize the design discourse.
-
Peter Mendelsund is a graphic designer, writer, musician. Until recently he was the associate art director at Alfred A. Knopf where he designed book covers for everyone from James Joyce to Franz Kafka, Stieg Larsson and Simone De Beauvoir. In 2014, he published What We See When We Read and Cover and will publish his first novel, Same Same, next year. In this conversation, Peter and I talk about his relationship to graphic design, working across mediums and disciplines, and the differences between writing fiction and nonfiction.
-
Andrew Lister and Matthew Stuart are designers, editors, educators, and publishers. Together, they edit and design Bricks from the Kiln, a new journal that ‘centers in and around graphic design.’ In this episode, Matthew, Andrew, and I talk about Bricks from the Kiln and how they started it and what their goals are, how publishing and editing has influenced their design practice, and the overlap between editing, teaching, and writing.
-
Rudy VanderLans is a graphic designer, type designer, and co-founder of Emigre, the type foundry and magazine he created with his wife Zuzana Licko. In the 1990s, Emigre Magazine became the place to read and discuss issues of graphic design, design criticism, and theory and gave a platform for some of the best design writers like Randy Nakamura, Mr. Keedy, Anne Burdick, and Kenneth FitzGerald. In this episode, Rudy and I talk about Emigre and his own relationship to graphic design and design theory, his interest in photography, and why the 1990s were such a golden era for design writing.
-
Jonathan Hanahan is an artist and designer whose practice explores the cultural and social ramifications of experiences which transcend physical and digital occupations and the role technology plays in shaping, mediating, and disrupting our everyday realities. He’s also an Assistant Professor in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis and an artist-in-residence at California College of the Arts. In this episode, Jonathan and I talk about his background in architecture and writing and how he found himself studying design, the importance of digital design criticism, and how he encourages his students to ...
-
Silas Munro is a designer, educator, and writer based in Los Angeles. He’s currently an Assistant Professor in Communication Arts and MFA in Graphic Design at Otis College of Art and Design, Advisor, Chair Emeritus in the MFA program in Graphic Design at Vermont College of Fine Arts, and his work and writing has been published in many forms around the world. In this episode, Silas and I talk about what it means to be a ‘design nomad’ and how this applies to ideas around expanded practices and cross disciplinary work, how teaching influences his design practice, and how to ...
-
Tim Belonax is a designer and educator in San Francisco. He currently works as a brand designer at Pinterest and teaches at the California College of Arts. He previously worked as a designer at Airbnb, Mine, and was a principle designer in Facebook’s Analog Research Lab. In this episode, Tim and I talk about institutional critique and how to encourage reflexivity while working in house, how teaching has influenced his work in the tech industry and vice versa, and why he left grad school to work at Facebook.
-
Francisca Monteiro is a typographer and book designer based in the United Kingdom. While I was working on my MFA thesis on design criticism in Baltimore, Francisca was also working on a thesis, at the University of Reading, on Emigre and the relationship between design and writing. I was struck by the similarities in our projects which we use to frame a discussion about the history of design criticism, the role of magazines in creating a discourse, and how the design writing has changed over the years.
-
Cameron Tonkinwise is a design theorist, educator, and writer based in Australia. He’s written on subjects ranging from sustainability to interaction design, design thinking to systems design and has taught in design institutions around the world. In this conversation, Cameron and I talk about his early interest in philosophy and politics and how design became a way he could bridge the gap between those, the challenges with design’s newfound cultural currency, and how designers need to reconsider how their work lives in the world in this current cultural and political moment.
-
Alissa Walker is the urbanism editor at Curbed where she writes about cities, infrastructure, transportation, and policy. Before that, she was the urbanism editor at Gizmodo and has written extensively about design, cities, and architecture for places like Design Observer, Dwell, Fast Company, the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times. In this episode, Alissa and I talk about the differences between writing about designed objects and writing about the city, the role of the critic, and how she writes about government, policy, and transportation through the lens of design.
-
Keller Easterling is an architect, writer, and professor at Yale University. Her most recent book, Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space examines global infrastructure networks as a medium of polity, and she’s written about architecture, design, and building for various publications. In this conversation, Keller and I talk about studying theater, how she ended up in architecture and her desire to move away from it, and the role of criticism in the discourse.
-
Jessica Barness is a design theorist, educator, and writer whose research interests include interactive environments, sound, and critical practices. She’s currently an associate professor in the School of Visual Communication Design at Kent State University and her writing has appeared in Design and Culture, Visual Communication, Dialectic, and more. In this episode, Jessica and I talk about her career as a practicing designer before making the shift to academia, the state of design discourse, and the differences between critical design, critical making, and design research. -
Mindy Seu is a designer, educator, and researcher. She is currently a student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and was previously a designer at 2×4 and MoMA. She’s designed and produced archival sites for Ralph Ginzburg and Herb Lubalin’s Eros and Avant Garde magazines. In this episode, Mindy and I talk about her early career and why she decided to go to graduate school, the role of research and archives in her work, and how graphic design is just one pillar of her practice.
-
Anab Jain is a designer, futurist, filmmaker and educator. As Co-Founder and Director of Superflux, she hopes to realise the vision of the Studio as a new kind of design practice, responsive to the challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century. She also teaches at the University Applied Arts in Vienna and gave a TED Talk last year on design’s role in imagining new futures. In this episode, Anab and I talk about Superflux’s blend of client and speculative work, her background in filmmaking, and pushing up against disciplinary boundaries.
-
Emmett Zeifman is an architect, educator, and writer. He’s the cofounder with Alfie Koetter of Medium Office, a design practice based in Los Angeles and New York, and Project, an independent publication that investigates the possibilities for developing a critical position in contemporary architecture. He also teaches architecture at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. In this episode, Emmett and I talk about the relationship between the classroom and the studio, the role of writing in his design practice, and what he learned studying literature.
-
Dan Hill is a designer, educator, and writer. He’s currently a director at Arup, a visiting professor at The Bartlett School, and adjunct professor at RMIT. He’s also the author of Dark Matter and Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary, and the long-running blog City of Sound. He previously worked at the Helsinki Design Lab and as director of Fabrica. In this episode, Dan and I talk about the evolution of his career, his vision for a new type of design education, and the role of writing in his work.
-
Mimi Zeiger is a writer, critic, curator and editor. She’s written for a variety of publications including The New York Times, Dwell, Domus, and The Architectural Review and is the founder of Loud Paper, a zine and digital publication that sought to increase the output of architectural discourse. She was also the co-curator for the US Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, which had the theme “Dimensions of Citizenship.” In this episode, Mimi and I talk about how she started writing after beginning a career as an architect, the role of the critic, and why we need architecture and ... -
Robin Sloan is a writer and media inventor based in Oakland. He’s the author of two novels, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore and Sourdough. He’s also written a variety of short stories and internet projects, dabbles in programming and machine learning, and makes extra virgin olive oil with his partner Kathryn Tomajan. In this conversation, Robin and I talk about what it means to be a media inventor and how this is similar to being a designer, his early career working at Twitter and Current TV, and the value of pursuing diverse creative projects.
-
Brian LaRossa is a designer, illustrator, writer, and reader. He’s a design director at Scholastic, writer for Design Observer, and on the adjunct faculty at CUNY. In this episode, Brian and Jarrett talk about his early resistance to the design world and how discovering its history and culture opened up a new love for the discipline. They also talk about how he started writing, his love of reading, and the similarities between his writing process and design process.
-
Marcin Wichary is a designer, writer, programmer, and typographer. He most recently was a designer at Medium and previously worked on design teams at Google and Code for America. He’s currently writing a book on the history of keyboards and typing, due to be released next year. In this episode, Marcin and Jarrett talk about how writing has supplemented his design work, the value of personal projects, and writing about his obsessions.
-
Daniel Eatock is a designer and artist based in London. He studied design at Ravensbourne College and earned his MA from the Royal College of Art. In this episode, Daniel talks to Jarrett about studying design and discovering conceptual art, his resistance to labeling his practice, the role of teaching in his work, and how he’s working towards being more present.
-
Allison Arieff is the editorial director of Spur and a columnist for The New York Times where she writes about architecture, design, and cities. Before that, she was the editor-at-large for both Good and Sunset magazines and was the editor-in-chief at Dwell. In this episode, Allison and Jarrett talk about how she wanted to be a writer since eighth grade, the expanding definition of design, and the relationship between design and policy.
-
Justin W. Cook is an architect, designer, and educator. He’s currently the Founding Director of the RISD Center for Complexity & Systems Practice, an initiative that is thinking about design in the widest sense. Previously, he worked at the Helsinki Design Lab and has advised students at MIT and Harvard. His work centers around design as a transformative act, sustainability, and systems thinking. In this episode, Justin talks to Jarrett about realizing he wanted to be an architect and his move into strategic design, thinking about organization change, and the role of the designer.
-
Christopher Hawthorne is the Chief Design Officer for the city of Los Angeles, a brand new position appointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti. Before that, he was architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times from 2004 to early 2018. He is Professor of the Practice at Occidental College and has taught at U.C Berkeley, Columbia University, and Southern California Institute of Architecture. In this episode, Jarrett and Christopher talk about this new job and how he’s approaching it, reading Paul Goldberger in high school, and the changing role of the architecture critic.
-
Andrew Blauvelt has been a designer, writer, curator, and educator. He’s currently the director of the Cranbrook Art Museum, a position he’s held since 2015. Before that, he worked at the Walker Art Center in a variety of roles including Senior Curator of Design, Research, and Publishing; Chief of Communications; and Design Director. He also served as Director of Graduate Studies and Chair of the Graphic Design Department at North Carolina State University and has written for a variety of publications on design. In this episode, Jarrett and Andrew walk through his career and talk about how he moved between ...
-
Alexander Tochilovsky is a designer, curator, and educator. He’s currently the curator at the Herb Lubalin Study Center and an instructor at Cooper Union. He studied graphic design at Cooper Union and went to graduate school at Cranbrook. In this episode, Alexander and I talk about his background and how he got interested in design, the role of design history in his practice, and how we can do a better job of learning from and teaching history today.
-
Kelsey Keith is the editor-in-chief of Curbed. Before that, she wrote about design and architecture for Dwell, Architizer, and a variety of other publications. In this episode, Kelsey and Jarrett talk about the late 2000s New York media landscape, cobbling together a freelance career, and her editorial vision for Curbed.
-
For the 100th episode of Scratching the Surface, Jarrett Fuller is joined by one of his oldest and closest friends Rory King to talk about their parallel journeys in design and evolving design practices. Rory is currently a graduate student in Cranbrook’s 2D Design Department and has worked as a designer at Pratt Institute and 2×4. Together, Rory and Jarrett collaborated on Sway, an experimental zine and short-lived podcast that heavily influenced the work they both doing now. They also reflect on their undergraduate education, talk about Rory’s current research work, and the role of writing and teaching in their ...
-
Martin Lorenz and Lupi Asensio are the founders of the Hamburg-based design studio TwoPoints.net. Founded in 2007, the studio’s work blends graphic design, typography, and editorial. The couple are also teachers and have taught in design programs around the world. In this episode, Jarrett talks to Lupi and Martin about their work and process, the role of teaching in their practice, and how writing informs their work.
-
Laurel Schwulst is a designer, writer, teacher, and webmaster. She runs an independent design practice in New York City and teaches in design programs at Yale and Rutgers. She previously was the creative director for The Creative Independent and a web designer at Linked By Air. In this episode, Laurel and Jarrett talk about how horses got her into graphic design, what websites can be, the potential of the peer-to-peer internet, and how writing and teaching influence her practice.
-
Chappell Ellison is currently a content strategist at Huge. She previously worked as a designer and was part of the inaugural class of SVA’s MFA in Design Criticism Program. In this episode, Chappell and I talk about her move from design to writing, the role of the critic, and how a dreamlike memory from Disneyworld made her realize she wanted to be a designer.
-
Cab Broskoski and Chris Sherron are two of the founders of Are.na, a knowledge sharing platform that combines the creative back-and-forth of social media with the focus of a productivity tool. Before working on Are.na, Cab was a digital artist and Chris a graphic designer and in this episode, they talk about their desire for a new type of bookmarking tool and building a platform for collaborative, interdisciplinary research as well as larger questions around open source tools, research as artistic practice, and subverting the norms of social media.
-
Kate Wagner is the creator of the viral blog McMansion Hell and has written about architecture, design, and culture for a variety of publications including Curbed, The Atlantic, Architectural Digest, and more. She recently graduated from Johns Hopkins with a Masters of Arts in Audio Science, specializing in architectural acoustics. In this episode, Jarrett and Kate talk about origins of the site, diverse forms of architecture criticism, and using humor to educate.
-
Adam Michaels and Shannon Harvey are the principals of Inventory Form and Content, a Los Angeles-based design and editorial studio focusing on graphic design, spatial design, strategy, and content development. They also operate Inventory Press, a publishing imprint that specializes in books on art, architecture, design, and music. Previously, Adam and Shannon were a part of the New York design studio Project Projects, where Adam was Founding Principal. In this episode, Adam and Shannon talk with Jarrett about the ethos behind IN-FO.com, expanded practices, and publishing.
-
Nancy Skolos and Tom Wedell are designers, authors, and educators. They operate Skolos+Wedell where they are interested in demising the boundaries between graphic design and photography through collaged three-dimensional images influenced by painting, technology, and architecture and are long-time faculty members at RISD. In this episode, Nancy and Tom talk to Jarrett about how they met at Cranbrook and the influence of that education on their career, how design education has changed over the last 30 years, and how they balance history and innovation in their own work and with students.
-
Mark Minkjan is an urban and architectural geographer. He is Editor-in-Chief at Failed Architecture and produces the Failed Architecture Podcast. He is also part of Non-fiction, office for cultural innovation, and has written for numerous publications including VICE, The Guardian and The Architectural Review. In this episode, Mark talks to Jarrett about the origins of Failed Architecture and his goals for the publication, the state of architectural and design criticism, and finding new ways to talk about buildings.
-
Jeffrey Schnapp is the founder/faculty director of metaLAB (at) Harvard and faculty co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. He holds the Carl A. Pescosolido Chair in Romance Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and is on the teaching faculty in the Department of Architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. In this episode, Jeffrey and Jarrett talk about his background as a medievalist and how that influences his research around media and technology, why he likes to call himself a ‘knowledge designer’, and how form and ...
-
Sam Jacob is an architect, writer, and teacher. He is the founder and director of Sam Jacob Studio, an architecture and design practice based in London, has written for all sorts of architecture publications, and is currently Professor of Architecture at University of Illinois at Chicago and Visiting Professor at Yale School of Architecture. In this episode, Sam and Jarrett talk about how he started writing, the writing classes he’s taught in Chicago, and how reading and writing influence his architecture practice. -
Nate Pyper is an alphabet artist working in publishing, performance, and video. He maintains an ongoing research practice on queer anarcho-punk zines and is a 2018 Graduate of the Yale School of Art. He previously worked as a designer at the Milwaukee Art Museum and organized the Designers Talking series. In this episode, Nate and Jarrett talk about his expanded practice, the role of writing and research in his work, and the importance of dialogue and conversation in his work.
-
Kimbro Frutiger is an architect and writer. He studied classical languages and archeology at Amherst College, with a focus on reconstruction of Greek-era sites in Sicily, before receiving an MArch from Yale University’s School of Architecture. Since 2000, he’s written about architecture history and culture for a variety of publications and is currently working on a book. In this episode, Kimbro talks to Jarrett about how his varied educational background influences his work as both an architect and writer, the different types of criticism, and the relationship between his writing and architectural practices.
-
Craig Mod is a writer, photographer, and designer based in Japan. He’s written extensively about books, publishing, walking, and technology for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Medium. He also publishes two newsletters, Roden and Ridgeline, and hosts On Margins, a podcast about making books. In this episode, Jarrett and Craig talk about his background as a designer and programmer, the evolution of his own writing and where he’d like to take it, and taking the longview in all of his work.
-
Reinier de Graaf has been a partner at OMA since 1996. He co-founded the studio’s think tank AMO and has overseen projects ranging from an exhibition of the history of the European Union to masterplans for projects around the world. He has also taught in Harvard’s architecture department and is the author of Four Walls and a Roof: The Complex Nature of a Simple Profession. In this episode, Jarrett and Reinier talk about the origins of AMO and when clients don’t need buildings, the intersections of theory and practice, and why he doesn’t always preach what he practices.
-
Kurt Andersen is a writer, radio host, and journalist. He’s the author of novels True Believers, Heyday, and Turn of the Century, and has written for film, television, and stage. He is the host and co-creator of arts and culture radio show Studio 360, co-founder of Spy Magazine, and author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire. Oh, he was also the design critic at Time for eight years. In this episode, Jarrett and Kurt talk about how he started writing about design, how design is a constant theme that runs through all of his work, and why Fantasyland might be a book about ...
-
Paul Bailey is a designer, educator and researcher. He’s currently the Course Leader for the MA Graphic Media Design program at the London College of Communication, an advisor at the Jan van Eyck Academie, and is a founding member of the Design Displacement Group. Paul’s expanded practice mixes client work with self-initiated projects and take various forms such as exhibitions, publications, performances, workshops and writings. In this episode, Jarrett and Paul talk about this expanded practice and his early education, how he started teaching and how being in the classroom influences his own work, and the value of research and ...
-
Vera Sacchetti is a design critic and curator. She’s currently the co-curator of TEOK Basel, one-half of the curatorial initiative Foreign Legion, and was the associate curator of the 4th Istanbul Biennial. Her writing has appeared in Domus, Disegno, Metropolis, and The Avery Review. She is a graduate of SVA’s Design Criticism program. In this episode, Jarrett and Vera talk about her move from designer to critic, her curatorial approach, and the process for assembling the Istanbul Biennial under the theme “A School of Schools.”
-
Oliver Wainwright a writer and photographer based in London. He has been the architecture and design critic of the Guardian since 2012. He trained as an architect at the University of Cambridge and the Royal College of Art, and worked in strategic planning at the Architecture and Urbanism Unit of the Greater London Authority and at a number of architecture practices, including OMA in Rotterdam and Muf in London. In this conversation, Oliver and Jarrett talk about the relationship between writing and architecture, the tensions between practice and criticism, and what it means to write for a major newspaper.
-
Michèle Champagne is a designer who moves between research, creative direction, and publication design across media. Michèle works with publication as a public conversation, and meanders open source dynamics, collaborative authorship, and reader participation and her research interrogates anti-criticism culture, positive psychology, happiness measurement, and their communication phenomena. In this episode, Michèle and Jarrett talk about her design criticism publication, That New Design Smell, creating an infrastructure for critical discourse, and the challenges with building a multidisciplinary career.
-
Natalia Ilyin is a designer, writer, and teacher based in Seattle. She’s currently a professor at Cornish College of Arts in Seattle where she teaches design history and criticism, design for social activism, and transition design and is a founding faculty of the MFA in Graphic Design at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her new book, Writing for the Design Mind, was published by Bloomsbury in February. In this episode, Natalia and Jarrett talk about the book and the relationships between design and writing, teaching design history, and finding your place in the design community.
-
Kerry William Purcell has written books and essays about photography, film, design, philosophy, and critical theory. He’s the author of biographies on Alexey Brodovitch and Josef Muller-Brockmann and is a senior lecturer in design history at University of Hertfordshire. In this episode, Jarrett and Kerry talk about how he found himself writing designer biographies, why he doesn’t like to call himself a design historian, and how design can be a lens to ask questions around culture, politics, and history. -
Paul Goldberger is perhaps the leading architecture critic working today. He’s served as architecture critic for both The New York Times and The New Yorker and is now a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. He’s the author of several books including a biography of Frank Gehry and his new book is Ballpark: Baseball in the American City. In this conversation, Jarrett and Paul talk about how architecture criticism has evolved, working with Ada Louise Huxtable, and what baseball parks can teach us about cities.
-
Na Kim is a graphic designer based in Seoul and Berlin. She’s a member of Table Union, was responsible for the design of Graphic magazine from 2009 to 2011 and was artistic director of the Fikra Graphic Design Biennial with Prem Krishnamurthy and Emily Smith. In this episode, Jarrett and Na talk about her journey to graphic design, the self-reflexivity in her work, and the relationships between curating and design.
-
Bruce Tharp is an Associate Professor in Art & Design at the Stamps School of Art and Design and is the co-author, with his wife Stephanie, of the new book, Discursive Design. Bruce originally studied mechanical engineering before getting an MID in Industrial Design and a PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology. In this episode, Jarrett and Bruce talk about discursive design and what that means, the strange trajectory of his career, and bridging the gaps between research and materiality.
-
Erik Brandt is a graphic designer and educator. From 2013 to 2018, he curated the internationally recognized experimental typography project, Ficciones Typografika, which has just been commemorated with a book by Formist; and is the chair of the graphic design department at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. In this episode, Jarrett and Erik talk about expanded practices, teaching alternative forms of design, and staying creative as you get older.
-
Edwin Heathcote is the architecture critic for the Financial Times and the founder and editor-in-chief of Reading Design. Originally trained as an architect, Edwin has also written for GQ and is the author of multiple books on architecture and design. In this episode, Jarrett and Edwin talk about his writing process, looking at architecture through a wider cultural lens, and the value of reading criticism from history.
-
Jerome Harris is a designer, educator, and curator. He’s currently the design director of Housing Works and recently taught at MICA and curated the show As, Not For, a survey of African American graphic design. In this episode, Jerome and Jarrett talk about his background as a flyer designer and dancer, how thinking about design history changed his own approach, and why we need to include as wide a range of work as possible when teaching design.
-
Ali Qadeer and Chris Lee are designers and educators. Together, they edited a recent issue of C Magazine with the theme graphic design. In this episode, Jarrett talks with Ali and Chris about the issue and their ideas around the editorial point-of-view, their teaching practice, and why they like finding new definitions for graphic design.
-
Mark Foster Gage is an architect, author, and educator. He’s an Assistant Dean at the Yale School of Architecture, principal of Mark Foster Gage Architects, and the editor of the new book, Aesthetics Equals Politics. In this conversation, Jarrett and Mark talk about the history of aesthetics and how it shapes our experience in the world, the problems with critiques, and how narrative can obscure how a building functions.
-
Rick Poynor is perhaps the foremost writer, critic, and editor on graphic design and visual culture. He is Professor of Design and Visual Culture at the University of Reading. In addition to founding and serving as the first editor in chief of Eye, Rick also cofounded Design Observer, continues as a columnist for Eye, and has written for Print and Blueprint. In this wide-ranging conversation, Jarrett and Rick talk about the early days of Eye and his early interest in visual culture, the evolution of design discourse over his career, and the new publications that excite him today.
-
Danah Abdulla is a designer, educator, and researcher. She’s a Senior Lecturer in Communication Design at Brunel University London; founder of Kalimat, non-profit magazine about Arab thought and culture; and a founding member of the Decolonising Design platform. In this episode, Danah and Jarrett talk about localizing design education, studying social design, and what it means to decolonize design.
-
Jenny Odell is a multidisciplinary artist and writer based in Oakland, California. She’s the author of How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, teaches digital/physical design at Stanford and has been the artist in residence at Recology SF (aka ‘the dump’), San Francisco Planning Department, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. In this episode, Jarrett and Jenny talk about her background in literature and design, the intersection of text and image, and the value of seeing what is front of you.
-
Vishaan Chakrabarti is an architect, urban planner, author, and academic. He’s the founder of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism, the author of A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for Urban America, and was just announced as the next dean of UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design. In this episode, Jarrett and Vishaan talk about his circuitous path to architecture, the intersection of practice and teaching, and how he plans to approach his new deanship.
-
Eddie Opara is a Pentagram partner whose work spans design, technology, and strategy. He previously ran his own studio, The Map Office, and worked as a designer at 2×4 and Imaginary Forces. In this episode, Jarrett and Eddie talk about questioning the brief, why his work is considered enigmatic, and thinking about your legacy.
-
Marco Steinberg is a strategic designer who works on the complex challenges that face governments, society, and the environment. Currently working independently, he previously founded and led the Helsinki Design Lab and was an Associate Professor at the Harvard Design School from 1999-2009. In this episode, Jarrett and Marco talk about the evolution of his career and move from architecture to strategic design, what strategic design means and how he thinks about his work, and why governments are in need of a redesign.
-
Nicholas Korody is a writer and artist. He writes for Archinect, where he is also the editor of their print publication, Ed; and is one-half of Adjustments Agency, a studio and artistic practice he formed with Joanna Kloppenburg to investigate the architecture of architecture. Earlier this year, Nicholas launched Interiors Agency, his new independent practice interested in the role of interior design and decoration in culture. In this episode, Jarrett and Nicholas talk about his liberal arts background and sideways entry into architecture, the labor of design discourse, and working across various mediums.
-
Darran Anderson is a writer and author of Imaginary Cities and the forthcoming Inventory. His writing on architecture, design, and space has appeared in The Atlantic, Vice, and CityLab. In this episode, Jarrett and Darran talk about his early interest in architecture and literature, experimenting with new forms of writing, and expanding how we talk about architecture and cities.
-
James Voorhies is a curator, art historian, writer, and educator. James is currently the chair of the Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice and a professor of fine arts at California College of Arts. He’s the director of the Curatorial Research Bureau, a bookshop, learning site, and exhibition space in San Francisco and is the author of Beyond Objecthood: The Exhibition as a Critical Form since 1968. In this episode, Jarrett and James talk about curation as a mix of mediation, caretaking, and administration, institutional critique, and how to balance teaching theory and practice in creative disciplines.
-
Lucinda Hitchcock is a book designer, typographer, and educator. She’s on the faculty at RISD, where she’s currently the head of the graphic design department and has designed books for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MFA Boston, and Tufts University Art Galleries. Her research involves narrative, place, and the shape of language. In this episode, Jarrett and Lucy talk about graphic designers as cultural curators, compassionate teaching, and what she learned during her recent sabbatical.
-
Johanna Drucker is an author, book artist, visual theorist, and cultural critic. She’s currently a professor in the Department of Information Studies at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. Her research and writing has focused on visual language and letterforms, typography, visual poetry, the history of books and digital aesthetics. In this episode, Jarrett and Johanna talk about her interest in making books as objects, her work on design history, and the being both an artist and academic.
-
Josh Owen is an industrial designer and educator. He runs his own design studio, Josh Owen LLC, and is a Full Professor and the Chair of the Industrial Design Department at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he also works with the Vignelli Center for Design Studies. In this episode, Jarrett and Josh talk about spending his summers on archeological digs with his father and how that influenced his interests in history and culture, how he started teaching, and how his work as a designer and teacher influence each other.
-
Mary Banas is a graphic designer and educator. Her independent creative practice, Yes, is More, spans research, teaching, and design. She also collaborates with Breanne Trammell and is on the faculty at California College of the Arts. In this episode, Jarrett and Mary talk about her roundabout journey into teaching, the value of an expanded practice, and how to set up better critiques in the classroom.
-
Reed Kroloff is a renowned educator, writer, critic, and consultant. He’s the newly appointed dean of the Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture and previously served as the director of the Cranbrook Academy of Art and dean of the school of architecture at Tulane University. He was also the editor-in-chief of Architecture magazine and runs the consultancy Jones Kroloff. In this episode, Jarrett and Reed talk about his unease in becoming an architect, how he started writing, and how he thinks about running an architecture program.
-
Rosanne Somerson is a furniture designer, educator, and President of Rhode Island School of Design. After studying industrial design at RISD and running her own practice, she returned to the school in 1985 to teach furniture design, and became the first leader of the new furniture design department. In 2015, she was appointed the 17th president of RISD. In this episode, Jarrett and Rosanne talk about her early career and how she started teaching, how she approaches her presidency like a designer, and what she sees for the future of design education.
-
Martin Venezky is a graphic designer, photographer, artist, and educator. Since 1997, he’s operated Appetite Engineers to produce books, installations, and illustrations and since 1993, he’s been on the faculty of the California College of Art in San Francisco. A new book of his photography, What I Know About Photography, was released last year by Jon Sueda on Kickstarter. In this conversation, Jarrett and Martin talk about his career and work, the value in image and form making, and why he’s focusing so much of his work on photography these days.
-
Justin Davidson is the architecture and classical music critic at New York Magazine. He previously studied music at Harvard and Columbia and began his journalism career as a staff writer at Newsday. He’s also the author of the book Magnetic City. In this episode, Jarrett and Justin talk about the role of the critic, the similarities between writing about music and architecture, and what happened after he broke the story about The Met’s new logo.
-
Leslie Roberts is an author, journalist, essayist, and educator. She’s the chair of the graduate writing program at California College of Arts in San Francisco and the author, most recently, of Here Is Where I Walk. At CCA, Leslie teaches courses on writing for designers and is the cofounder of Ecopoesis, a multidisciplinary group focusing on making and messaging around ecologies. In this episode, Jarrett and Leslie talk about her background as a journalist, teaching writing to designers, and finding new stories around how we talk about the environment.
-
Henry N. Cobb, who passed away yesterday at 93, was a founding partner of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, the architecture firm he co-founded with I.M. Pei and Eason Leonard in 1955. From 1980-1985 he was the chair of the department of architecture at Harvard University and in 2018, published Henry N. Cobb: Words and Words 1948-2018 where he uses his career to trace what he calls ‘the predicament of architecture.’ In this episode, Jarrett and Henry talk about the origins of the book, how writing and teaching influence his practice, and why architecture has sustained his interest for nearly ...
-
Margo Halverson is a designer, educator, photographer, and artist. She’s a professor of graphic design and Chair of the Graphic Design department at Maine College of Art and the co-founder of DesignInquiry, an amorphous collective centered around ideas of disciplinary discourse, expanded practice, and design research. In this episode, Jarrett and Margo talk about her journey from photography to design, the origins on DesignInquiry, and blending personal and professional work.
-
Susan Sellers is a founding partner and executive creative director at 2×4, a senior design critic at Yale School of Art, and from 2013 to 2016, was Head of Design for The Metropolitan Museum of Art. In this episode. Jarrett and Susan talk about the changing definitions of design, putting ideas into the world, and the importance of craft and story.
-
Rachel Berger is a designer, writer, and educator based in California. She’s currently the chair of Graphic Design at CCA and her writing as appeared in Design Observer, Significant Objects, and CLOG. Previously, she was a designer at SYPartners and Pentagram. In this episode, Rachel and Jarrett talk about her early interest in writing, how teaching has changed her practice, and why she takes graphic design seriously.
-
Perrin Drumm is a writer, editor, and publisher. She’s currently the head of publishing at A24 and is the co-founder and previous director of Eye on Design. In this episode, Perrin and Jarrett talk about studying creative writing and fine art, the origins and editorial direction of Eye on Design, and the role of criticism.
-
Denise Gonzales Crisp is a graphic designer, educator, and writer. She’s a professor of Graphic Design and director of graduate programs for Graphic Design at North Carolina State University. Her writing has appeared in Eye, Emigre, Design Observer, Design and Culture, and Items Magazine. In this episode, Denise and Jarrett talk about the differences between her writing and design processes, designing with spreadsheets, and using improvisational methods in the classroom.
-
Winka Dubbeldam is an architect and educator. She’s the principal of Archi-Tectonics, the research-based architecture firm she founded in 1994 and is the chair of the architecture program and a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania. In this conversation, Winka and Jarrett talk about her interest in philosophy, how research shapes her work as both a designer and teacher, and the importance of sharing knowledge.
-
Paul Thompson is the Vice-Chancellor of the Royal College of Art. Before this, he was the director of the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum and the director of the Design Museum in London. In this conversation, Jarrett and Paul talk about his background in comparative literature and how that’s influenced his career in design and administration, learning on the job, and how expanding definitions of design are changing education and curation.
-
Deanna Van Buren is an architect, activist, and the design director and co-founder of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces, an architecture and real estate development non-profit working to end mass incarceration by building infrastructure that attacks its root causes: poverty, racism, unequal access to resources, and the criminal justice system itself. In this conversation, Deanna and Jarrett talk about design as ideology, the relationships between architecture and criminal justice, and how a building can cause real change.
-
Eric Heiman is a designer, writer, and educator. He’s principal and co-founder of Volume, a San Francisco-based design studio, Associate Professor of Graphic Design at CCA, and has written for Emigre, Design Observer, Eye and other publications. In this conversation, Jarrett and Eric talk about how graphic design in San Francisco has changed, the gaps between education and practice, and the role of writing in his work.
-
Dr. Bon Ku is an emergency room physician, assistant dean for Health and Design and director of the Health Design Lab at Jefferson University. He’s also the co-author, with Ellen Lupton, of the new book Health Design Thinking. In this conversation, Jarrett and Bon talk about the intersection of design and healthcare, how COVID-19 exposes the faults in our healthcare system, and how medical school could be redesigned.
-
Maryam Fanni and Sara Kaaman, are two thirds of the design collective MMS, along with Matilda Flodmark, collaborating since 2012 on investigations and writings on visual culture, graphic design, and historiography from feminist perspectives. MMS recently published Natural Enemies of Books: A Messy History of Women in Printing and Typography. In this episode, Jarrett is joined by Maryam and Sara to talk about the book, the ideas behind MMS, and seeking a more expansive view of design history and practice.
-
Danielle Aubert is a graphic designer, educator, writer, and political organizer. She’s the author of, most recently, The Detroit Printing Co-Op: The Politics of the Joys of Printing and an Associate Professor in Graphic Design at Wayne State University. In this episode, Jarrett and Danielle talk about the Detroit Printing Co-op and expanding design history, the politics of graphic design, and when to teach the basics in a design class.
-
Paul Andersen and Paul Preissner are the curators of the American Pavilion for the 2020 Venice Architecture Biennale. Their project, American Framing, draws attention to both the most influential and overlooked contributions to architecture: wood framing. They previously have collaborated on a variety of architecture and curatorial projects together. Additionally, Andersen is the principal of Denver-based Independent Architecture and teaches at the University of Illinois Chicago and Preissner runs Paul Preissner Architects and teaches at both University of Illinois Chicago and Columbia GSAAP.
-
Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli is an architect, urbanist, teacher and is the curator of the Russian Pavilion for the 2020 Venice Architecture Biennale. He worked at OMA from 2007 to 2020, and became partner in 2014. Earlier this year, he established 2050+ his own multidisciplinary studio operating at the intersections of design, technology, politics, and the environment. In this conversation, Jarrett and Ippolito talk about the ideas behind the Russian Pavilion and the transition to an online exhibition, the value of a multidisciplinary practice, and the intersection of research and practice.
-
Annelys de Vet is a Belgium-based designer, educator and researcher. From 2009 to 2019, she was the the director of the design program at the Sandberg Instituut and is the editor of Design Dedication, a new book collecting the work and thinking during her tenure. Now she’s leading a new masters program on Disarming Design that is committed to design practices in situations of oppression. In this episode, Jarrett and Annelys talk about thinking about design education as a system of community and care and structuring a curriculum that leaves room for experimentation.
-
Kyle Chayka writes about art, technology, design, and the systems that shape culture. His first book, The Longing for Less, is a cultural history of minimalism that looks at minimalist movements in art, music, and philosophy. In this episode, Jarrett and Kyle talk about how minimalism often obscures complex systems, how all culture writing is also design writing, and the role of structure in his writing process.
-
Alicia Cheng is a founding partner of the New York design studio MGMT and the author of the book This Is What Democracy Looked Like: A Visual History of the Printed Ballot. She previously worked as a designer for Method, was a co-design director at the Cooper Hewitt, and is currently an external critic for the MFA program at RISD. In this episode, Jarrett and Alicia talk about how the design of ballots can teach us about the United States’s uneasy relationship with voting, mixing design history with American history, and how research feeds her design practice.
-
Nikil Saval is a writer, editor, activist, and the newly elected Pennsylvania state senator. He was previously a co-editor of n+1 and wrote about design, architecture, and urbanism for The New Yorker and The New York Times. In this episode, recorded right before the election, Jarrett and Nikil talk about the intersection of design and politics, how writing and editing are similar to legislating, and how design is a container for many of his intellectual interests.
-
Alice Grandoit, Nu Goteh, and Marquise Stillwell are the co-founders of Deem, a new journal that positions design as a social practice. Their first issue, “Design for Dignity,” features a range of stories, interviews, and profiles of practitioners both inside and outside design. In this conversation, Jarrett talks with them about Deem’s goals, opening up design to more people, and how publishing a printed journal is a political act.
-
Janet Abrams is a writer, editor, journalist, and artist. Her new book, Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bauhaus: Profiles in Architecture and Design, collects her profiles of designers like Rem Koolhaas, Frank Gehry, Muriel Cooper, and Paul Rand from her time writing for Blueprint and I.D. magazine. In this episode, Jarrett and Janet reflect on the design writing of the late eighties, talk about the art of profile writing, and where her work in writing and ceramics intersect.
-
Spencer Bailey is a writer, editor, and journalist. He is the co-founder of the media company The Slowdown and the author of the book In Memory of: Designing Contemporary Memorials. He’s also editor-at-large for Phaidon, contributing editor at Town and Country and was previously the editor-in-chief at Surface. In this episode, Jarrett and Spencer talk about the design of memorials, how he started writing about design and architecture, and how design fits into The Slowdown’s mission.
-
Jarrett Earnest is an artist and writer. His book, What It Means To Write About Art: Interviews with Art Critics, was released in 2018 and features longform interviews with art writers, historians, theorists, and critics. Jarrett’s writing has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, The Village Voice, Vulture, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. In this episode, the Jarretts talk about the strange similarities in their work, the differences between writing about art and design, and the value in having deep conversations about art.
-
Robert Wiesenberger is a curator and historian of modern and contemporary art, design, and architecture. He is currently the Associate Curator of Special Projects at The Clark Art Institute and on the faculty at Williams Graduate Program in Art History. He previously was a curatorial fellow at the Harvard Art Museum where he worked with the Bauhaus collection and co-authored, with David Reinfurt, the 2017 monograph on Muriel Cooper. In this episode, Jarrett and Robert talk about the role of the object in art history, blurring the lines between design and art practices, and teaching design history.
-
Martha Thorne is the Dean of IE School of Architecture and Design and the executive director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, a latter of which she’s held since 2005 and will be stepping down from next month. Previously she was Associate Curator of Architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago. In this episode, Jarrett and Martha talk about the expanding definitions of architecture, the intersection of the aesthetic and the humanitarian in architecture practice, and how the Pritzker has evolved over the years.
-
Denis Weil is the dean of IIT Institute of Design in Chicago. After studying chemical engineering, Denis has worked across every sector of the design industry, from product design to marketing, including leading design and innovation at McDonald’s, studying civic design at Harvard, and serving as an innovation fellow for Bloomberg Philanthropies. In this wide-ranging conversation, Jarrett and Denis talk about how this background informs his work at IIT, the role of the designer in civic engagement, and the limits of design thinking.
-
Daniel Barber is an Associate Professor of Architecture and Chair of the Graduate Group in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design. His research focuses on architecture and climate change, both historic and contemporary. He is the author, most recently, of Modern Architecture and Climate: Design before Air Conditioning. In this episode, Jarrett and Daniel talk about the new book, how air conditioning changed modern architecture, and how we can better engage with the climate crisis.
-
Julia Watson is a designer, activist, leading expert on indigenous technologies. She’s the author of Lo—TEK: Design for Radical Indigenism, teaches in the design programs at Harvard and Columbia, and runs Julia Watson Studio, an experimental landscape and urban design studio. In this conversation, recorded live at the 2020 AIGA Design Conference, Jarrett and Julia talk about what we can learn from indigenous design, resisting high-tech solutions, and how to better design with nature.
-
Nina Valerie Kolowratnik is an architect, researcher, and PhD candidate at the Human Rights Centre at Ghent University. Her research focuses on indigenous people’s knowledge in human rights courts, migration, and notational systems. She’s the author of the book The Language of Secret Proof: Indigenous Truth and Representation. In this episode, Jarrett and Nina talk about architecture education and how it influences her current work, the role of architecture in a legal context, and why she’s now studying law.
-
Ashley Mendelsohn is an architecture curator, educator, and multidisciplinary designer focused on engaging and strengthening communities by demystifying the barriers to access and understanding. From 2015 to 2020, she was the Assistant Curator of Architecture and Digital Initiatives at the Guggenheim Museum and previously founded the 40 Kirkland Gallery at Harvard GSD. In this episode, Jarrett and Ashley talk about moving between design and curation, teaching architecture to high school students, and making architecture more understandable for a general audience.
-
Karla Britton and Robert McCarter are the editors of Modern Architecture and the Lifeworld: Essays in Honor of Kenneth Frampton, a fascinating collection of writing that responds to, expands upon, and honors the great architecture writer, educator, and historian Kenneth Frampton. In this episode, Jarrett talks with Karla and Robert about Frampton’s legacy, his interest in connecting architecture to the wider world, and how they assembled this excellent new book.
-
Sarah Meister was recently named the next executive director of Aperture, beginning in May 2021. Before this she was a Curator in the photography department at MoMA since 2009. In this episode, recorded before her appointment at Aperture, Jarrett and Sarah talk about the challenges in curating photography when everyone is a photographer, the parallels between design history and photography history, and the role of the curator in a world increasingly dominated by images.
-
Jeanne Gang is an architect, teacher, and the founding principal and partner of Studio Gang. The studio’s research-driven practice encourages intellectual curiosity and formal exploration across projects ranging from books and publications up to skyscrapers and urban planning. In this wide-ranging conversation, Jarrett and Jeanne talk about the role of research in the design process, building a studio culture that encourages curiosity, and how the idea of ‘actionable idealism’ drives all her work.
-
Milton S. F. Curry is dean and professor at the University of Southern California School of Architecture and holds the Della & Harry MacDonald Dean’s Chair in Architecture. He previously taught at University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, Harvard, and Cornell. He also edited the journals Critical Productive and Appendx. In this episode. Jarrett and Milton talk about the citizen architect, the relationship between critical theory and design, and the limits of design thinking.
-
Brendan Cormier is a curator, editor, and designer. He’s currently a design curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum and was previously managing editor of Volume magazine and an urban designer and planner. In this episode, Jarrett and Brendan talk about how urbanism influences his work as a curator, using objects to tell stories, and the intersection of editorial and curatorial practice.
-
Dori Tunstall is a design anthropologist, public intellectual, and design advocate who works at the intersections of critical theory, culture, and design. She’s currently the Dean of Design at Ontario College of Art and Design and previously taught at Swinburne University and the University of Illinois Chicago. In this episode, Jarrett and Dori talk about the intersection of design and anthropology, finding new forms for sharing knowledge, and the work of decolonizing design programs.
-
Beatrice Galilee is a curator, critic, and editor. She’s currently the founder and executive director of The World Around and is the author of the new book, Radical Architecture of the Future. She previous was the curator of contemporary architecture and design at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, architecture editor for Icon Magazine, and has curated exhibitions and written for publications all around the world. In this episode, Jarrett and Beatrice talk about blurry definitions of architecture, working in an institution versus going independent, and finding new ways to talk about architecture and design.
-
Mike Essl is dean and associate professor at Cooper Union. He co-founded the design firm The Chopping Block, worked at Mule Design, and has taught at Parsons School of Design and School of Visual Arts. In this episode, we talk about disciplinary boundaries in design education, how teaching reignited his love for design, and why Cooper Union changed his life.
-
Deyan Sudjic likely needs no introduction. From 2006 to 2020, he was the director of London’s Design Museum, he was a founding editor of Blueprint, editor of Domus from 2000 to 2004, and was an architecture and design critic for The Observer and The Guardian. He’s also published a handful of books and has taught at both Kingston University and The Royal College of Art. In this conversation, Jarrett and Deyan talk about the threads that unify all this work, the power of museums, and how each generation of design writers are responding to the generation before it.
-
Willo Perron is a designer, creative director, and partner of Perron-Roettinger whose work spans branding, interiors, and live performance. Willo has designed stage sets, packaging, and marketing material for artists like Kanye West, JAY-Z, St. Vincent, and Rihanna as well as branding and retail design for Adidas, Yeezy, and American Apparel. In this episode, Jarrett and Willo talk about the term ‘creative director,’ his self-education in design, and the overlap between retail spaces and live performance.
-
Alexandra Cunningham Cameron is a curator of contemporary design and the Hintz Secretarial Scholar at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum. At Cooper Hewitt, she organized the first retrospective fashion designer Willi Smith that includes an exhibition, book, and online archive. Previously, she was a curator at Design Miami and the editor in chief of The Miami Rail. In this conversation, Jarrett and Alexandra talk about finding definitions for design, the relationship between literature and design, and institutional critique.
-
Todd Oldham has designed fashion and furniture, books and interiors. He’s also published books on Charley Harper, Alexander Girard, Nest, and Joan Jett. In this wide-range and inspiring conversation, Jarrett and Todd talk about growing up in creative households, Todd’s move from fashion to book publishing, and building a multidisciplinary practice.
-
Michael Kimmelman is the architecture critic at The New York Times. Prior to this role, he created the Abroad column while based in Berlin and was the chief art critic. He’s also the founder and editor-at-large of Headway, a new venture focused on global challenges and progress. In this conversation, Jarrett and Michael talk about how he transitioned from writing about art to architecture, the role of the critic at a place like The New York Times, and how architecture discourse has changed over the last decade.
-
Glenn Adamson is a curator and writer who works at the intersection of craft, design history, and contemporary art. He’s the author, most recently, of Craft: An American History. He previously was the director of the Museum of Arts and Design, head of research at the V&A, and curator at the Chipstone Foundation. In this conversation, Jarrett and Glenn talk about the understanding craft and its role in society, how he put together his new book, and how craft and design are different.
-
Tobias Revell is a designer, artist, educator, and administrator. He is currently Program Director of Graphic Design at the London College of Communication, a founding director of the design research consultancy Strange Telemetry, and is working on a PhD in Design at Goldsmiths. In this conversation, Jarrett and Tobias talk about working between art and design, the intersection of creative practice and administration, and the evolution of speculative design practices.
-
Tereza Ruller is an Amsterdam-based designer and educator. She is the co-founder of The Rodina, a post-critical design studio with an experimental practice drenched in strategies of performance art, play, and subversion. She’s also the author of Action to Surface, a theory of performative design. In this conversation, Jarrett and Tereza talk about what performative design is and how designers can use it in their work, using design as a critical practice, and when the designer appears in the work.
-
Zak Kyes is the creative director and founder of Zak Group where he leads projects for cultural and commercial clients across scales and mediums. From 2006 to 2016, he was the art director of the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and in 2007 he curated with Mark Owens Forms of Inquiry: The Architecture of Critical Graphic Design. In this episode, Jarrett and Zak talk about design as a type of cultural production, what he learned from working with architects, and rethinking our definitions of culture.
-
Bryony Quinn is a writer, editor, and educator. She teaches in design programs at the University of East London, London College of Communication, Royal College of Art, and Camberwell College and has written or edited for a variety of publications and books like Bricks from the Kiln and Failed States. In this conversation, Jarrett and Bryony talk about her move from illustration to writing, how she teaches writing to design students, and the role of editing. Oh, and punctuation.
-
Aric Chen is a curator, writer, and design historian. He was recently appointed the general and artistic director of Rotterdam’s Het Nieuwe Institute (The New Institute) and previously served as curatorial director for Design Miami, curator at large for M+ and creative director of Beijing Design Week. He also is a professor and founding director of the Curatorial Lab at the College of Design and Innovation at Tongji University. In this episode, Jarrett and Aric talk about the value of wide interests and multidisciplinary careers, building M+’s collection, and what he hopes to do in his new job.
-
Guus Beumer was the general and artistic director of Het Nieuwe Instituut from 2013 to 2021. Before this, he was director of NAI Maastricht and Marres Center for Contemporary Culture. In this episode, Jarrett and Guus talk about the founding of Het Nieuwe Instituut, institutional administration as a design process, and balancing stability and instability in cultural institutions.
-
Nina Paim is a designer, researcher, curator, educator, and activist. She is currently the director of Futuress, an editorial platform about feminism, design, and politics. She co-edited the book Design Struggles: Intersecting Histories, Pedagogies, and Perspectives and edited Taking A Line for A Walk. In this episode, Jarrett and Nina talk about Futuress and ideas around feminist publishing, how she got into design, and creating spaces for dialogue within and around graphic design.
-
Esther Choi is a multidisciplinary artist and architectural historian. In 2019, she published Le Corbuffet, a Fluxus-inspired artist’s book that adopts the form of a cookbook and in 2020, she started Office Hours, a socially-engaged initiative that cultivates the sharing of knowledge among practitioners who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. In this episode, Esther and Jarrett talk about working between photography and architectural theory, genres of writing, and building a body of work that’s hard to define.
-
In this special episode celebrating both Scratching the Surface’s fifth anniversary and our 200th episode, Jarrett turns the tables on himself to answer questions submitted by listeners like who would he like to bring back from the dead to interview? How’s the show changed in five years? What’s the role of design school? What did he want to be in middle school? What non-design books influenced his thinking?
-
Charles Saumarez Smith is the author of The Art Museum in Modern Times, an architectural history of art museums. He previously was the Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Arts in London and before this served as director of both the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery. In this conversation, Jarrett and Charles talk about the relationship between architecture and museums, the role of the museum director, and administration as a form of research.
-
Fleur Watson is the Executive Director and Chief Curator for the Centre for Architecture Victoria | Open House Melbourne and the author of the new book, The New Curator: Exhibiting Architecture and Design. She previously was curator at Design Hub Gallery at RMIT and an editor-in-chief at Monument magazine. In this episode, Jarrett and Fleur talk about her new book, evolving practices of curating design, design as process, and the move from editing to curating.
-
Lorne Buchman is the president of ArtCenter College of Design and the author of the new book, Make To Know: From Spaces of Uncertainty to Creative Discovery. He also hosts the podcast Change Lab: Conversations on Transformation and Creativity. In this episode, Jarrett and Lorne talk about new ways of thinking about creativity, his background in the theater, and the intersection of practice and theory.
-
Lorraine Wild is a designer who teaches and writes. A graduate of Cranbrook Academy of Art and Yale School of Art, Lorraine runs Green Dragon Office in Los Angeles and is on the faculty of the graphic design program at California Institute of Arts. She’s written extensively about graphic design for a variety of publications. In this wide-ranging conversation, Jarrett and Lorraine talk about the early years at Cranbrook, working for the Vignellis, rethinking design history, and what it means to be a graphic designer today.
-
Sean Anderson is an Associate Professor and Director of the B.Arch. Program at Cornell. He previously was the Associate Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at MoMA where he most recently co-organized Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America with Mabel O. Wilson. In this wide-ranging conversation, Jarrett and Sean talk about his interest in both history and practice, writing vs. curating, and the impact of MoMA’s Reconstructions show.
-
Michael Gericke joined Pentagram in 1985, originally working for Colin Forbes before becoming a partner himself (making him the second longest-serving Pentagram partner!). His new monograph, Graphic Life, collects much of the work he’s done at the studio across environmental projects, posters, and identity design. In this conversation, Jarrett and Michael talk about putting together a monograph, how Pentagram has changed over its history, and why he still likes to call himself a ‘graphic designer.’
-
Justin Beal is an artist and writer based in New York. His first book, Sandfuture, is both a biography of the architect Minoru Yamasaki and a personal memoir about our relationships to the built world. In this conversation, Jarrett and Justin talk about how this book came together to uncover how he arrived at its unusual structure and format, what spending time in archives taught him about architecture, and how studying architecture influences his studio practice.
-
Zara Arshad is a curator and researcher interested in twentieth- and twenty first-century material and visual culture, liminal spaces, speculative histories, and design futures. She documented contemporary design in China, conducted oral histories on South Korean graphic design, and operates a speculative design practice with media artist Yaloo. In this episode, Jarrett and Zara talk about her journey into design, the expanded definitions for describing her work, and how to think about graphic design canons.
-
LinYee Yuan is the founder and editor of MOLD, a print and digital magazine about designing the future of food. She previously was an editor for Core77, the entrepreneur in residence at Quartz, and has written about design, art, and food for Food52, Design Observer, Cool Hunting, and Elle Decor. In this conversation, Jarrett and LinYee talk about the intersection of design and food, the decision to make a print magazine, and what designers can learn from food systems.
-
Chris Rudd is a designer, community organizer, and youth worker. He’s currently a professor of community-driven design at IIT Institute of Design and founder of ChiByDesign, a black-owned and people-of-color led human-centered design firm. In this conversation, Jarrett and Chris talk about the intersection of community organizing and design, the limits of co-design, and what anti-racist and post-capitalist design looks like in practice.
-
Lydia Kallipoliti is an architect, engineer, and scholar. She is an assistant professor at the Cooper Union School of Architecture, the author of the book The Architecture of Closed Worlds and is the co-curator of the 2022 Tallinn Architecture Biennale. In this conversation, Jarrett and Lydia talk about being an architect who doesn’t build, Lydia’s concept of ‘immersive scholarship’, and alternative forms of disseminating research.
-
Robert A.M. Stern is an architect, teacher, and writer. He is the founder of Robert A.M. Stern Architects, served as dean of the Yale School of Architecture from 1998 to 2016, hosted the PBS series Pride of Place in 1986, and served on the board of directors for the Walt Disney Corporation from 1992 to 2003. He’s the author, most recently, of Between Memory and Invention: My Life in Architecture. In this conversation, Mr. Stern talks about his early interest in architecture history and the possibilities of an alternate career as a historian or curator, how leading Yale changed how ...
-
Nicole Killian is a graphic designer and educator whose work spans design, publishing, video, and installation. They are currently co-director of the Design, Visual Communications MFA and associate professor of graphic design at Virginia Commonwealth University. In this conversation, Jarrett and Nicole talk about studying at the Bauhaus and Cranbrook, how institutions can become more experimental, and what it means to queer design education.
-
Liam Young is a speculative architect and director whose work spans design, fiction, and futures. He is cofounder of Tomorrows Thought Today, an urban futures think tank, and Unknown Fields, a nomadic research studio. He is also the director of the Masters in Fiction and Entertainment program at SCI Arc. His latest project is Planet City, a story of a fictional city for the entire population of earth. In this wide-ranging conversation, Jarrett and Liam talk about the elasticity of the term ‘architect’, the value of storytelling and fictions, and co-opting culture to find new audiences.
-
Carl DiSalvo is an Associate Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology where he holds dual appointments in the School of Interactive Computing and the School of Literature, Media, and Communication. His new book, Design as Democratic Inquiry is an exploration of ‘doing design otherwise’. In this conversation, Jarrett and Carl talk about the overlap of critical design and social design, what it means to design for democracy, and the role of writing in his work.
-
Maria Nicanor is the director of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. She previously was the executive director of the Rice Design Alliance at Rice University’s School of Architecture and a curator at the design, architecture, and digital department of the Victoria and Albert Museum. In this conversation, Jarrett and Maria talk about the mandate of the Cooper Hewitt, the role of museums, and why design can be the great equalizer.
-
Eva Hagberg is an author, architecture writer, and editorial and publication strategist. Her new book, When Eero Met His Match, is a hybrid biography of Aline Louchheim Saarinen and an account of her time working as an architectural publicist. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Dwell, The Architect’s Newspaper, Wallpaper, and more. In this conversation, Jarrett and Eva talk about writing memoirs, the role of publications in design media, and how we’re all living in the world Aline Saarinen created.
-
Tripp Mickle is a tech reporter for The New York Times and the author of After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul, a book about the tension between design and commerce in a post-Steve Jobs Apple. In this conversation, Jarrett and Tripp talk about how design is viewed inside Apple, what happens when design gets a seat at the table, and learning to write about design for a general audience.
-
Matthew Wizinsky is a designer, researcher, educator, and author of the new book Design After Capitalism. He is an Associate Professor & Graduate Program Director in the Ullman School of Design at the University of Cincinnati, PhD researcher in Transition Design at Carnegie Mellon University, and Associate Editor for Visible Language. In this conversation, Jarrett and Matthew talk about the relationship between design and capitalism, what post-capitalist design might look like, and why design is a hyperobject.
-
Elvia Wilk is the author of the novel, Oval, and the essay collection, Death by Landscape. She’s contributed to publications like Frieze, Artforum, 4Columns, Rhizome, and e-flux and was a founding editor of the design and architecture publication uncube. In this wide-ranging conversation, Jarrett and Elvia talk about the intersection of criticism and fiction, how writing essays is a type of design, and the tensions between complicity and critique.
-
Sam Grawe is the Chief Brand & Marketing Officer at The Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity. He previously was the Global Brand and Editorial Director at Herman Miller and the editor-in-chief at Dwell. In this conversation, Jarrett and Sam talk about the intersection of branding and editorial, the early years at Dwell, and the enduring influence of the Eames’s philosophies.
-
Iker Gil is an architect and director of MAS Studio, the editor-in-chief of MAS Context, and the Executive Director of the SOM Foundation. He was the co-curator of Exhibit Columbus 2020-2021 and associate curator of the US Pavilion at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016. In this conversation, Jarrett and Iker talk about the relationship between architecture and editing, sustaining a publication, and the value of organizing and administration in creative work. -
James Bridle is a writer, artist, and technologist. They are the author, most recently, of Ways of Being as well as New Dark Age. They’ve exhibited art in galleries and institutions around the world and have written for publications like Wired, The Atlantic, and the Guardian. In this wide-ranging conversation, Jarrett and James talk about the limited ways we talk about artificial intelligence, why human-centered design might just be corporation-centered design, and the value of working across mediums.
-
Carson Chan is an architecture writer, curator, and educator. He is the inaugural director of the Emilio Ambasz Institute for the Joint Study of the Built and Natural Environment at MoMA and a curator in the department of architecture and design. He previously co-founded the Current Collective for Architecture History and Environment and the Berlin-based project space PROGRAM. In this conversation, Jarrett and Carson talk about the ambition of the Ambasz Institute, the process of redefining architecture, and why aquariums are a lens to view the intersections of the natural and built worlds.
-
Michael McCoy is an industrial designer and educator. From 1971 to 1995, he was the co-artist-in-residence with Katherine McCoy of the pioneering design department at the Cranbook Academy of Art. With Katherine, he is the co-author of Cranbrook Design: The New Discourse and continued to teach at a variety of schools around the world. In this conversation, Michael and Jarrett talk about his early industrial design education, how he and Kathy joined Cranbrook, and how they fostered a space of experimentation in the department.
-
Katherine McCoy is a graphic designer and educator. From 1971 to 1995, she was the co-artist-in-residence with Michael McCoy of the pioneering design department at the Cranbook Academy of Art. With Mike, she is the co-author of Cranbrook Design: The New Discourse and continued to teach at a variety of schools around the world. In this conversation, Katherine and Jarrett talk about the state of graphic design in the seventies, learning how to teach design, and the influence of Dutch design on Cranbrook’s curriculum.
-
Andrés Jaque is the founder of the Office for Political Innovation and the newly appointed dean of Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. His work spans architecture, performance, publishing, curating, and research. In this conversation, Jarrett and Andrés talk about what he wants to do in his new position at Columbia, the intersection of politics and architecture, and how thinking in scales influences his work.
-
Jeremiah Chiu is a creative director, artist, synthesis, and educator. He is an Assistant Professor at Otis College of Art & Design, a lecturer at Art Center College of Design, and a resident DJ at Dublab. His studio, Some All None, is a hybrid creative studio working at the intersection of graphic design, art, music, and technology. His most recent album, recorded with Marta Sofia Honer, is called Recordings from the Åland Islands. In this conversation, Jeremiah and Jarrett talk about balancing personal work with client work, how to rethink classroom critiques, and how performing music influences his design practice. -
Fraser Muggeridge is a graphic designer based in London. His studio works across a range of formats with a focus on typography and formal innovation. In 2010, he founded and is a tutor at the Typography Summer School, a week-long program for recent graduates and professionals and in 2022, he completed a PhD at RMIT called “A Knowing Wrongness: Innovation in graphic design through combinations of traditional mastery and deliberately unconventional techniques.” In this conversation, Jarrett and Fraser talk about the ideas behind a knowing wrongness, the importance of process, and why so much contemporary graphic design looks the same.
