Scratching The Surface

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 practice and how he teaches design theory to his students. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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 write about design clearly and simply. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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

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

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 the design journal 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. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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 has changed over the course of her career. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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

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.

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 for both the practitioner and the critic. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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 his current work designing exhibitions at Pentagram. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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

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

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

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 archeology to design, how to get more designers interested in criticism, writing for a general audience, and the goals of SVA's design criticism program. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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 over his career. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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

Louise Sandhaus is a designer, educator, and writer based in Los Angeles. She teaches a variety of courses at CalArt 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. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

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

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 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.

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