Scratching The Surface

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 2x4. 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 work. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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 various disciplines, his early interest in design theory, and how the discourse around graphic design has changed over his career. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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 Souther 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. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

Brian LaRossa is a designer, illustrator, writer, and reader. He's the 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. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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 Biennalle, 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 design critics in today's political climate. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

Anab Jain is a designer, futurist, filmmaker and educator. As Co-founder and Director of Superflux, she hopes to realize 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. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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 2x4 and MoMA. She's also 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.

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. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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.

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. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.