Scratching the Surface

Andy Chen and Waqas Jawaid are the founders of Isometric Studio, a New York design studio that promotes inclusion, equality & progress. Andy and Waqas were thesis critics at MICA in December and I sat down with them while they were in Baltimore to talk about their backgrounds in sociology and architecture influence their design practice, the value of design criticism in the contemporary design profession, and the type of design writing they'd like to see more of. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

Anne Quito is a designer and writer currently working as a design reporter at Quartz. Anne is the founder of the design studio Design Lab 360 and a recent graduate of SVA's Design Criticism program. In this episode, I talk with Anne about her design background and her journey into writing, how to write about design for a general audience, and how she wrote her own job description when she joined the Quartz team as a "design reporter." Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

Ruben Pater, working under the name Untold Stories, describes his work as creating "visual narratives about geopolitical issues" and creating "new relations between journalism and design". He most recently is the author of the book, The Politics of Design, where Pater explores the cultural and political context of the typography, colors, photography, symbols, and information graphics that we use every day. In this conversation, I talk with Ruben about the book and the relationship between design and journalism, showcasing his process as the artifact, the importance of studying design outside of the traditional Western canon, and why he still calls himself a designer. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

Rianne Petter and Mark Mulder are designers and researchers from the Netherlands. The couple operates independent practices that span graphic design, research, writing, and education. Last fall, the couple visited Baltimore to lead a weekend workshop on design research of Maryland Institute College of Art's graduate graphic design department and I sat down with them at the end of the weekend to talk about their own practice, the role of research in the graphic design process, and the differences between the design discourse of the Netherlands and the United States. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

Jon Sueda is a designer, curator, and educator. He is the founder of the Stripe, a graphic design studio based in San Francisco specializing in printed material, identity, and exhibition work and the Chair of the MFA Design program at California College of the Arts. He's also curated the exhibitions for the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, the 25th International Graphic Design Biennial in Brno, Czech Republic, and SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco. In this conversation, Jon and I talk about his design background, the intersection of graphic design and curation, and studying under critics like Lorraine Wild and Jeffery Keedy at CalArts. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

Prem Krishnamurthy is a designer, curator, and writer. He is a founding principle, with Adam Michaels, of the New York design studio Project Projects and founder and curator of P!, an experimental exhibition space in New York's Chinatown. Additionally, Prem is an editor for the art journal Paper Monument and on the board of directors for Triple Canopy. In August, I visited Project Projects's office to talk with Prem about these range of projects. Over the course of the conversation, we talk about the relationship between design and writing, the role of authorship, the false divide between form and content, and the writers he's been enjoying lately. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

On this week's episode, I talk with Bryn Smith, a designer, writer, and editor based in New York City. Bryn is a graduate of SVA's Design Criticism MFA and the co-author of the new book, Twenty Over Eighty. We talk about her experience in SVA's program, what a design critic could do at major publications, and how to use design artifacts to write about larger cultural issues. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm

Khoi Vinh is currently Principle Designer at Adobe, Design Chair at Wildcard and co-founder of Kidpost and previously co-founded Mixel and was the design director of The New York Times online. Khoi's site, Subtraction.com, was one of the first blogs I started reading when I started designing over a decade ago and in this episode, I talk to him about how he started blogging, how writing has influenced his design career, and the the need for a more rigorous criticism around digital product design. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

Armin Vit is the co-founder of Under Consideration with his wife Bryony Gomez-Palacio, the site behind popular blogs like Brand New, FPO, and SpeakUp. In this conversation, I talk to Armin about how he started writing, why he shut down SpeakUp in 2009, why everyone is critiquing logos now, and how social media is changing the design discourse. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

In my second conversation with Jessica Helfand — recorded earlier this month when Jessica was in Baltimore — we talk about Winterhouse (the studio she co-founded with William Drenttel), publishing, the role of design (and design criticism) in Trump's America, and what she's learned in her first semester teaching design at the Yale School of Management. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.