Scratching the Surface

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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 his interest in design, what he's learned from studying Norman Potter, and how artifacts can be forms of critique. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.