A video of my presentation “Singing the Surface,” is available at the VCFA MFA in Graphic Design YouTube channel. The talk was part of my 2016 visit as guest critic, lecturer and workshop leader for the April residency, and had been previously given at Kookmin University in Seoul, and Phoenix Design Week. An adaptation (with different graphics) was published earlier this year in Print magazine.
My latest writing, “Learn by Numbers: Eleven Lessons Taught Only in Design School,” has been posted at the Design Observer blog. The essay turns the table on the perennial listicles authored by design practitioners offering low-downs on the profession that are allegedly essential and that design education supposedly doesn’t supply. The published article is a condensation of a slightly longer piece (with the title heading this post) that may end up here some day.
I’m the interviewee of the latest edition of Jarrett Fuller’s Scratching the Surface. “Scratching the Surface is a design podcast about the intersection of criticism and practice hosted by Jarrett Fuller. Each week, Jarrett interviews designers, writers, critics, educators and those that operate between these fields about how writing, criticism, and theory informs individual practice and the graphic design profession at large. Previous guests have included Michael Beirut, Jessica Helfand, Michael Rock, Steven Heller, and Alexandra Lange.” Thanks to Jarrett for inviting me to participate and massaging my words into broadcast.
Two quotes from my essay “Match Prints: Barney Bubbles vs. Paula Scher” are included in the introduction to the new Paula Scher: Works monograph published by Unit Editions. Scher is a senior partner in the New York office of Pentagram, and was featured recently in the Netflix series Abstract: The Art of Design.