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School of Visual Arts: MFA in Design Criticism
BY
Jacquie Ang
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1
THE MEETING POINT
They say that when great minds meet, the remarkable happens. One of those extraordinary moments arose in the year 1947, the day two Americans found their turning point in art.
When Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth (best known for his illustrations of Tarzan of the Apes) founded The Cartoonists and Illustrators School, they did not realize how the trade school with just 3 instructors and 35 students could shape art education, simply by upholding the belief that their faculty should comprise of working professionals in the arts and art-related fields. Holding classes at night lets students and faculty work during the day and attend the courses after work to sharpen their competitive edge in contracting better jobs.
Neither could they imagine that the small school could grow into a world-renowned multi-disciplinary institution with a faculty of more than 800 and a student body that exceeds 3,000, much less earn the recognition as of one of America’s finest schools in art and design.
Click on thumbnail to view images in detail
For almost 60 years, students have found in the school one of the most inspiring environments to nurture the spirit of creativity, inventiveness and experimentation, on top of developing their individual sense of identity and direction of purpose.
By then, the establishment would be known as the School of Visual Arts (SVA), a new name that belies its simplicity to speak volumes of the conviction that there is more to art than mere technique alone.
And the institution would have moved to its current residence at 209 East 23rd Street to afford space for exhibitions, lectures, symposiums and panel discussions, where one could find guests of notable achievements such as Muhammad Ali, Salvador Dali and Susan Sarandon holding students rapt in attention.
Other illustrious names that have walked through the hallways as a teacher or a student include the legendary Milton Glaser, Paul Davis, Joseph Kosuth and Keith Haring.
THE POSTER CHILD
Silas H. Rhodes became the man synonymous with SVA. In 1972, he was appointed the college’s first president. During his six-year tenure, SVA grew to become the largest independent college of art in United States.
Emerging as a leader in pioneering programs for artists takes nothing less than maverick philosophies and an active participation in New York City’s rich culture, a part of which SVA has grown a close association with by means of its visually provocative promotional posters that have adorned the New York subway for more than 50 years.
Click on thumbnail to view images in detail
Other than juggling his administrative and teaching duties, Rhodes was also the creative director spearheading these signature public projects, acting on the college’s commitment in serving the greater good through community service. Since then, the posters have brought SVA international acclaim. They feature the work of highly regarded designers and artists such as Paula Scher, George Tscherny, Thomas Woodruff, Milton Glaser and Stefan Sagmeister. The messages they carry have diversified from promoting the school and recruiting students to communicating social messages.
Recently, Milton Glaser mounted a campaign to raise public awareness of the crisis in Darfur. The SVA instructor and board member designed a poster with the tagline “What Happens in Darfur Happens to Us”. The message appeared on MTA subway platforms in November and all proceeds went to the International Rescue Community.
THE RE-ENERGISED IDENTITY
If a picture can speak a thousand words, imagine the power of a logo. SVA marked their 50th anniversary in 1997 with renewed vigor and recharged the college’s goals with a new logo specially designed by George Tscherny, who had a hand in writing SVA’s history. He taught the first graphic design course in the mid-1950s and created one of the first of the famous SVA subway posters, all of which was instrumental to SVA’s establishment as one of the world’s top institutions for graphic design.
Click on thumbnail to view images in detail
The flower-like symbol is an apt depiction of SVA’s blossoming and its budding program areas, the Visual Arts Museum, the Visual Arts Gallery, the Visual Arts Press and the Visual Arts Library.
Explained Tscherny: “I wanted to avoid the ‘hard-edge’ sameness of corporate trademarks. The new symbol and signature reflect what SVA has become — an art school with a broad range of offerings, from technology-based programs to painterly pursuits. I felt it was imperative to reflect that scope in our new identity.”
THE NEW COURSE
Taking the logo’s significance into perspective, SVA’s latest addition to a wide spectrum of distinctive programs is the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Design Criticism, the first graduate-level degree program dedicated to critical writing about design.
Due to commence in the Fall of 2008, graduates will be primed to be the next generation of design critics, journalists, curators, educators and managers.
From the two-year, 64-credit curriculum, students will acquire the relevant skills and knowledge, encompassing graphic, Web and product design, incorporating fashion, urban planning and network systems, requisite for professional writing on design or other critical practices such as curating, publishing or teaching.
The curriculum imparts a theoretical framework with opportunities for practical experience in academic or journalistic pursuits. Students will draw from the critical vocabularies and methodologies used in the criticism of literature, film and art, and design history. Before concluding the course by presenting a thesis at an annual public conference dedicated to design criticism, to be inaugurated by the first graduating class in 2010, they will produce tangible documents of their critical practice, such as books, blogs, documentaries, course syllabi, conferences and exhibitions.
“Design criticism is still in its infancy,” remarked Steven Heller, a respected authority in design who co-chairs the MFA Design department at SVA. “But the range of venues for critical discourse has increased in the multimedia era. This program will address more than just conventional authorship, enabling students to apply their critical skills to a range of media including radio, television, film, and exhibitions.”
In addition to the curriculum fringed with regular lectures, workshops and seminars by distinguished international critics, authors, journalists, curators, designers, editors and historians, the courses would be taught by the core faculty, which involves industry heavyweights such as:
Kurt Andersen Co-creator and host of Studio 360, a weekly arts and design program
Michael Bierut Prominent author and partner at international design firm Pentagram
Paola Antonelli Curator of department of Architecture and Design at New York’s Museum of Modern Art
Julie Lasky Editor-in-chief I.D.: The International Design Magazine
Jessica Helfand Partner of Winterhouse design studio and co-founder of esteemed design blog Design Observer
Click on thumbnail to view images in detail
Together with Heller, writer, critic and educator Alice Twemlow founded the academic endeavor. “Public awareness of design and its social, economic, and even political implications is growing,” noted Twemlow, who will chair the new MFA Design Criticism department.
THE RICH LEGACY
The new MFA in Design Criticism is a step towards the perseverance of SVA in its role as an international resource for the study of design.
Current president of SVA David Rhodes questioned in his address to class of 2007 at the 32nd commencement of SVA: “Ultimately, we don’t have leaders because we don’t have voters who will hold leaders to account. The question is not ‘Where have all the leaders gone?’ but rather, where have all the voters gone?”
Notwithstanding the burgeoning forums for design commentary, there exists a need for a more intellectually rigorous approach to design criticism. Rhodes lamented that it was “difficult to think of a time in which there is so little integrity and at the same time so little outrage”, but he can always take heart in SVA and its perspicacious members.
As his article title remarked, leaders are made, not born. The new program aspires to shape design criticism as a discipline and contribute to public discourse equipped with imaginative, historically informed and socially accountable writing and thinking.
“Design touches the lives of everyone,” said Twemlow, echoing the industry’s sentiments. “Yet to understand the role of design in contemporary life requires a grasp of not just how things look, but also how they are made, used and, increasingly, how they decay. Design criticism explores all of these and requires knowledge of history, philosophy, politics, economics, ethics and ecology.”
SVA celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. The spirit of Silas H. Rhodes, forever remembered as the torchbearer of arts and design, over and above the soul of the school, will no doubt join the alumni in the march into the next anniversary.
Integrity intact.
TAXI Design Network bids farewell to Mr. Silas H. Rhodes, a respected and devoted visionary in art and design education, in 28 June 2007. Mr. Milton Glaser, faculty and board member at SVA, has been named acting chairman of the board.
TAXI gets the lowdown on the new MFA Design Criticism program straight from the brains behind the program, Steven Heller and Alice Twemlow.
If leaders are made, not born, what kind of students do you accept for the program?
The students will come from all backgrounds — writers, curators, scholars and designers. The bottom line is they must want to write, research and analyze contemporary design through a current and historical lens.
This program is for designers who are already writing and would like to enhance and enrich their practice through the acquisition of historical knowledge, experimentation with various theoretical models, and exploration of related disciplines such as material culture studies, film criticism or curation. And it’s for writers who want to focus on design and also through design, as a way to view and comment on the social condition. So it’s not just about the formal analysis or connoisseurship of design objects or environments, it’s actually more about evaluating the role and agency of those objects and environments in peoples’ everyday lives.
What does it take to complete the course and mature into a respected design critic?
There’s no doubt about it — it’s going to be a demanding experience for a student. This two-year program is highly structured and intensive; degree candidates must successfully complete 64 credits, including all required courses, and commit to a residency of two academic years. The intellectual focus of the first year is threefold: on design itself, on criticism as a literary genre, and on the range of tools with which to practice design criticism. Firstly, students undertake a comprehensive survey of design and design thinking in all its multiple manifestations and contexts, from the 1850s until the present day.
Secondly, they study criticism — the history and philosophy of its application to design but also to other creative fields such as literature, art, film and photography. Meanwhile, students are also introduced to the tools and strategies for conducting their own design criticism, including different forms of writing, research techniques, object and document-based analysis, and contemporary theory. In the summer break between the first and second years, students are encouraged to undertake an internship with a member of faculty, at a magazine, publishing house, museum or gallery.
The second year offers the opportunity for specialization both in subject matter and format. Students participate in medium-specific workshops devoted to topics such as producing a radio program or documentary, curating an exhibition, or editing a magazine or blog. They then research and develop a large-scale thesis project which must include a substantial written component and which may be realized in any format.
The MFA culminates in an annual public conference, conceived and organized by graduating students, in which they present papers based on their theses, alongside professional design critics and thinkers.
We believe this program will stand a graduate in good stead for a career in the explication, interpretation or criticism of design. As for “maturing into a respected design critic”, well, that could take the rest of their life!
What are the opportunities out there for a full-time oppositional design critic?
At present there are many ways for a potential grad to find work — journalism, scholarship, curatorial pursuit, radio, film, etc. Having the critical capability makes a writer broader in scope. I'm not sure what is meant by "oppositional critic" since not all criticism is in opposition to the status quo. The program will enable writers to think about, analyze, and then address many issues of design, from its conception to its function.
Opposition is only one tactic available to a critic. There are numerous opportunities available for a full-time design critic, it’s just that they’re not always labeled as such. Design critics operate in a range of media and institutions. Our MFA has a strong practical bias and will prepare graduates for careers as journalists, editors, curators, educators and design managers as well as critics.
Steven Heller once said that "learning must occur in an inspired environment". How would you describe the environment in SVA where a new generation of design critics will be groomed?
The MFA Design Criticism program is based in New York’s Flatiron district within walking distance from some of the world’s best design collections, libraries, and archives, as well as being in close proximity to the city’s design studios and publishing houses. We’re building a beautiful studio environment for the students, so we expect a buzzing work atmosphere, much like a magazine’s editorial office, where students come into contact with everyone who’s passing through. And it is these people — the faculty and the visiting lecturers connected with the program — that will ultimately provide the inspiration. The faculty is composed of today’s most accomplished practitioners in design and architectural criticism as well as leaders in related fields such as journalism, museum and exhibition curation, radio program production, as well as magazine, newspaper and book editing.
In addition to courses taught by core faculty, there will be an ongoing program of lectures, workshops and seminars by distinguished international critics, authors, journalists, curators, designers, editors and historians. Between Steven and myself, we know a lot of people involved in design’s explication and analysis. So whenever anyone is in town, we’ll be finding a way for them to come and visit us and share their insights with the students. To me, that sounds like an “inspired environment”!
In your personal opinions, how can a critique be professional yet personal? How/Where should the line be drawn?
The personal comes from a certain passion in the subject at hand. Writers who report on the world without any prior interest often do great things. But for criticism to have any resonance it must start with a personal interest in the subject(s). Yet all criticism must be professional — from the craft of writing to the quality of communication. It should not be ad hominem.
Students will have the opportunity to explore a full spectrum of writing formats and styles in the course of developing their own critical voices. This balance between objectivity and subjectivity — professional and personal — will be just one of many dichotomies they will experiment with. Personal voice, experience, and politics play a big part in criticism and their inclusion can be seen as one of the ways in which criticism is differentiated from journalism. Good criticism, in my opinion, lets the reader know where it is coming from, literally as well as ideologically.
If design flourishes in a public environment, what is the value of design criticism in propelling the industry?
The public must be "educated" about what they are consuming. The critic in all disciplines helps the public while informing the professional. Design criticism will work on two levels (at least): To add depth to the public's understanding of objects and ideas and serve as a kind of a watchdog for the professionals who must produce for that public.
Design criticism works closely with industry, but doesn’t necessarily “propel” it. The goal is to build design criticism as a discipline and contribute to public discourse with new writing and thinking that is imaginative, historically informed and socially accountable.
Given that the course will result in trained writers who will take a critically in-depth look at design works, what do you think are the viewpoints artists and designers should take in anticipation?
I think they should be excited! In fact most of them are. The fact that design receives critical attention is an endorsement of its maturity as a discipline and its ability to stimulate an entire literary genre. The thing we have to get past is a perception some designers have that criticism is always critical — a destructive force and therefore something to fear and resist; this is clearly not the case. Sometimes criticism needs to oppositional in order to prevent something from happening or to change something for the better. In other cases, however, criticism can be creative, when the work of the critic meets that of the designer in a kind of symbiotic exchange.
What are your personal definitions of a design critic?
For me, a design critic is one who can evaluate design, objects, and ideas — messages and stories — all through a historical lens while at the same time referencing current technological and aesthetic tastes, mores and philosophies. A critic is the interpreter of the stories while at the same time the ombudsman of the profession.
A design critic expresses publicly and for a sustained period, informed opinion about contemporary design. They make their views and values explicit and their contribution is intended to be transformative. I also believe that a design critic is a social critic.
© 2003 - 2007 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.
They say that when great minds meet, the remarkable happens. One of those extraordinary moments arose in the year 1947, the day two Americans found their turning point in art.
When Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth (best known for his illustrations of Tarzan of the Apes) founded The Cartoonists and Illustrators School, they did not realize how the trade school with just 3 instructors and 35 students could shape art education, simply by upholding the belief that their faculty should comprise of working professionals in the arts and art-related fields. Holding classes at night lets students and faculty work during the day and attend the courses after work to sharpen their competitive edge in contracting better jobs.
Neither could they imagine that the small school could grow into a world-renowned multi-disciplinary institution with a faculty of more than 800 and a student body that exceeds 3,000, much less earn the recognition as of one of America’s finest schools in art and design.
Click on thumbnail to view images in detail
For almost 60 years, students have found in the school one of the most inspiring environments to nurture the spirit of creativity, inventiveness and experimentation, on top of developing their individual sense of identity and direction of purpose.
By then, the establishment would be known as the School of Visual Arts (SVA), a new name that belies its simplicity to speak volumes of the conviction that there is more to art than mere technique alone.
And the institution would have moved to its current residence at 209 East 23rd Street to afford space for exhibitions, lectures, symposiums and panel discussions, where one could find guests of notable achievements such as Muhammad Ali, Salvador Dali and Susan Sarandon holding students rapt in attention.
Other illustrious names that have walked through the hallways as a teacher or a student include the legendary Milton Glaser, Paul Davis, Joseph Kosuth and Keith Haring.
THE POSTER CHILD
Silas H. Rhodes became the man synonymous with SVA. In 1972, he was appointed the college’s first president. During his six-year tenure, SVA grew to become the largest independent college of art in United States.
Emerging as a leader in pioneering programs for artists takes nothing less than maverick philosophies and an active participation in New York City’s rich culture, a part of which SVA has grown a close association with by means of its visually provocative promotional posters that have adorned the New York subway for more than 50 years.
Click on thumbnail to view images in detail
Other than juggling his administrative and teaching duties, Rhodes was also the creative director spearheading these signature public projects, acting on the college’s commitment in serving the greater good through community service. Since then, the posters have brought SVA international acclaim. They feature the work of highly regarded designers and artists such as Paula Scher, George Tscherny, Thomas Woodruff, Milton Glaser and Stefan Sagmeister. The messages they carry have diversified from promoting the school and recruiting students to communicating social messages.
Recently, Milton Glaser mounted a campaign to raise public awareness of the crisis in Darfur. The SVA instructor and board member designed a poster with the tagline “What Happens in Darfur Happens to Us”. The message appeared on MTA subway platforms in November and all proceeds went to the International Rescue Community.
THE RE-ENERGISED IDENTITY
If a picture can speak a thousand words, imagine the power of a logo. SVA marked their 50th anniversary in 1997 with renewed vigor and recharged the college’s goals with a new logo specially designed by George Tscherny, who had a hand in writing SVA’s history. He taught the first graphic design course in the mid-1950s and created one of the first of the famous SVA subway posters, all of which was instrumental to SVA’s establishment as one of the world’s top institutions for graphic design.
Click on thumbnail to view images in detail
The flower-like symbol is an apt depiction of SVA’s blossoming and its budding program areas, the Visual Arts Museum, the Visual Arts Gallery, the Visual Arts Press and the Visual Arts Library.
Explained Tscherny: “I wanted to avoid the ‘hard-edge’ sameness of corporate trademarks. The new symbol and signature reflect what SVA has become — an art school with a broad range of offerings, from technology-based programs to painterly pursuits. I felt it was imperative to reflect that scope in our new identity.”
THE NEW COURSE
Taking the logo’s significance into perspective, SVA’s latest addition to a wide spectrum of distinctive programs is the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Design Criticism, the first graduate-level degree program dedicated to critical writing about design.
Due to commence in the Fall of 2008, graduates will be primed to be the next generation of design critics, journalists, curators, educators and managers.
From the two-year, 64-credit curriculum, students will acquire the relevant skills and knowledge, encompassing graphic, Web and product design, incorporating fashion, urban planning and network systems, requisite for professional writing on design or other critical practices such as curating, publishing or teaching.
The curriculum imparts a theoretical framework with opportunities for practical experience in academic or journalistic pursuits. Students will draw from the critical vocabularies and methodologies used in the criticism of literature, film and art, and design history. Before concluding the course by presenting a thesis at an annual public conference dedicated to design criticism, to be inaugurated by the first graduating class in 2010, they will produce tangible documents of their critical practice, such as books, blogs, documentaries, course syllabi, conferences and exhibitions.
“Design criticism is still in its infancy,” remarked Steven Heller, a respected authority in design who co-chairs the MFA Design department at SVA. “But the range of venues for critical discourse has increased in the multimedia era. This program will address more than just conventional authorship, enabling students to apply their critical skills to a range of media including radio, television, film, and exhibitions.”
In addition to the curriculum fringed with regular lectures, workshops and seminars by distinguished international critics, authors, journalists, curators, designers, editors and historians, the courses would be taught by the core faculty, which involves industry heavyweights such as:
Click on thumbnail to view images in detail
Together with Heller, writer, critic and educator Alice Twemlow founded the academic endeavor. “Public awareness of design and its social, economic, and even political implications is growing,” noted Twemlow, who will chair the new MFA Design Criticism department.
THE RICH LEGACY
The new MFA in Design Criticism is a step towards the perseverance of SVA in its role as an international resource for the study of design.
Current president of SVA David Rhodes questioned in his address to class of 2007 at the 32nd commencement of SVA: “Ultimately, we don’t have leaders because we don’t have voters who will hold leaders to account. The question is not ‘Where have all the leaders gone?’ but rather, where have all the voters gone?”
Notwithstanding the burgeoning forums for design commentary, there exists a need for a more intellectually rigorous approach to design criticism. Rhodes lamented that it was “difficult to think of a time in which there is so little integrity and at the same time so little outrage”, but he can always take heart in SVA and its perspicacious members.
As his article title remarked, leaders are made, not born. The new program aspires to shape design criticism as a discipline and contribute to public discourse equipped with imaginative, historically informed and socially accountable writing and thinking.
“Design touches the lives of everyone,” said Twemlow, echoing the industry’s sentiments. “Yet to understand the role of design in contemporary life requires a grasp of not just how things look, but also how they are made, used and, increasingly, how they decay. Design criticism explores all of these and requires knowledge of history, philosophy, politics, economics, ethics and ecology.”
SVA celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. The spirit of Silas H. Rhodes, forever remembered as the torchbearer of arts and design, over and above the soul of the school, will no doubt join the alumni in the march into the next anniversary.
Integrity intact.
TAXI Design Network bids farewell to Mr. Silas H. Rhodes, a respected and devoted visionary in art and design education, in 28 June 2007. Mr. Milton Glaser, faculty and board member at SVA, has been named acting chairman of the board.
TAXI gets the lowdown on the new MFA Design Criticism program straight from the brains behind the program, Steven Heller and Alice Twemlow.
If leaders are made, not born, what kind of students do you accept for the program?
The students will come from all backgrounds — writers, curators, scholars and designers. The bottom line is they must want to write, research and analyze contemporary design through a current and historical lens.
This program is for designers who are already writing and would like to enhance and enrich their practice through the acquisition of historical knowledge, experimentation with various theoretical models, and exploration of related disciplines such as material culture studies, film criticism or curation. And it’s for writers who want to focus on design and also through design, as a way to view and comment on the social condition. So it’s not just about the formal analysis or connoisseurship of design objects or environments, it’s actually more about evaluating the role and agency of those objects and environments in peoples’ everyday lives.
What does it take to complete the course and mature into a respected design critic?
There’s no doubt about it — it’s going to be a demanding experience for a student. This two-year program is highly structured and intensive; degree candidates must successfully complete 64 credits, including all required courses, and commit to a residency of two academic years. The intellectual focus of the first year is threefold: on design itself, on criticism as a literary genre, and on the range of tools with which to practice design criticism. Firstly, students undertake a comprehensive survey of design and design thinking in all its multiple manifestations and contexts, from the 1850s until the present day.
Secondly, they study criticism — the history and philosophy of its application to design but also to other creative fields such as literature, art, film and photography. Meanwhile, students are also introduced to the tools and strategies for conducting their own design criticism, including different forms of writing, research techniques, object and document-based analysis, and contemporary theory. In the summer break between the first and second years, students are encouraged to undertake an internship with a member of faculty, at a magazine, publishing house, museum or gallery.
The second year offers the opportunity for specialization both in subject matter and format. Students participate in medium-specific workshops devoted to topics such as producing a radio program or documentary, curating an exhibition, or editing a magazine or blog. They then research and develop a large-scale thesis project which must include a substantial written component and which may be realized in any format.
The MFA culminates in an annual public conference, conceived and organized by graduating students, in which they present papers based on their theses, alongside professional design critics and thinkers.
We believe this program will stand a graduate in good stead for a career in the explication, interpretation or criticism of design. As for “maturing into a respected design critic”, well, that could take the rest of their life!
What are the opportunities out there for a full-time oppositional design critic?
At present there are many ways for a potential grad to find work — journalism, scholarship, curatorial pursuit, radio, film, etc. Having the critical capability makes a writer broader in scope. I'm not sure what is meant by "oppositional critic" since not all criticism is in opposition to the status quo. The program will enable writers to think about, analyze, and then address many issues of design, from its conception to its function.
Opposition is only one tactic available to a critic. There are numerous opportunities available for a full-time design critic, it’s just that they’re not always labeled as such. Design critics operate in a range of media and institutions. Our MFA has a strong practical bias and will prepare graduates for careers as journalists, editors, curators, educators and design managers as well as critics.
Steven Heller once said that "learning must occur in an inspired environment". How would you describe the environment in SVA where a new generation of design critics will be groomed?
The MFA Design Criticism program is based in New York’s Flatiron district within walking distance from some of the world’s best design collections, libraries, and archives, as well as being in close proximity to the city’s design studios and publishing houses. We’re building a beautiful studio environment for the students, so we expect a buzzing work atmosphere, much like a magazine’s editorial office, where students come into contact with everyone who’s passing through. And it is these people — the faculty and the visiting lecturers connected with the program — that will ultimately provide the inspiration. The faculty is composed of today’s most accomplished practitioners in design and architectural criticism as well as leaders in related fields such as journalism, museum and exhibition curation, radio program production, as well as magazine, newspaper and book editing.
In addition to courses taught by core faculty, there will be an ongoing program of lectures, workshops and seminars by distinguished international critics, authors, journalists, curators, designers, editors and historians. Between Steven and myself, we know a lot of people involved in design’s explication and analysis. So whenever anyone is in town, we’ll be finding a way for them to come and visit us and share their insights with the students. To me, that sounds like an “inspired environment”!
In your personal opinions, how can a critique be professional yet personal? How/Where should the line be drawn?
The personal comes from a certain passion in the subject at hand. Writers who report on the world without any prior interest often do great things. But for criticism to have any resonance it must start with a personal interest in the subject(s). Yet all criticism must be professional — from the craft of writing to the quality of communication. It should not be ad hominem.
Students will have the opportunity to explore a full spectrum of writing formats and styles in the course of developing their own critical voices. This balance between objectivity and subjectivity — professional and personal — will be just one of many dichotomies they will experiment with. Personal voice, experience, and politics play a big part in criticism and their inclusion can be seen as one of the ways in which criticism is differentiated from journalism. Good criticism, in my opinion, lets the reader know where it is coming from, literally as well as ideologically.
If design flourishes in a public environment, what is the value of design criticism in propelling the industry?
The public must be "educated" about what they are consuming. The critic in all disciplines helps the public while informing the professional. Design criticism will work on two levels (at least): To add depth to the public's understanding of objects and ideas and serve as a kind of a watchdog for the professionals who must produce for that public.
Design criticism works closely with industry, but doesn’t necessarily “propel” it. The goal is to build design criticism as a discipline and contribute to public discourse with new writing and thinking that is imaginative, historically informed and socially accountable.
Given that the course will result in trained writers who will take a critically in-depth look at design works, what do you think are the viewpoints artists and designers should take in anticipation?
I think they should be excited! In fact most of them are. The fact that design receives critical attention is an endorsement of its maturity as a discipline and its ability to stimulate an entire literary genre. The thing we have to get past is a perception some designers have that criticism is always critical — a destructive force and therefore something to fear and resist; this is clearly not the case. Sometimes criticism needs to oppositional in order to prevent something from happening or to change something for the better. In other cases, however, criticism can be creative, when the work of the critic meets that of the designer in a kind of symbiotic exchange.
What are your personal definitions of a design critic?
For me, a design critic is one who can evaluate design, objects, and ideas — messages and stories — all through a historical lens while at the same time referencing current technological and aesthetic tastes, mores and philosophies. A critic is the interpreter of the stories while at the same time the ombudsman of the profession.
A design critic expresses publicly and for a sustained period, informed opinion about contemporary design. They make their views and values explicit and their contribution is intended to be transformative. I also believe that a design critic is a social critic.
© 2003 - 2007 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.