counter/point: The 2013 D-Crit Conference

Event Information

When: 11 May 2013, 12:30 to 7:00 p.m.
Where: Visual Arts Theatre, 333 West 23rd Street, New York, NY
Price: Free (registration is required)

You are invited to the 2013 D-Crit Conference, moderated by NPR’s “The Takeaway” host John Hockenberry, and featuring graduating students of the SVA MFA in Design Criticism, on May 11, 2013 at the SVA Theatre in New York City. The event is free and open to the public but you must register to save your [...]

Book Launch: Fabrico Próprio 2nd edition, presented by Frederico Duarte

Event Information

When: 10 May 2013, 7:00 p.m.
Where: Van Alen Books, 30 West 22nd Street, ground floor
Price: Free and open to the public

Fabrico Próprio—now in its second, improved edition—is coming to New York City, after being launched in Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The launch will take place at Manhattan’s architecture and design bookstore Van Alen Books .
Design critic (and D-Crit faculty member) Akiko Busch will introduce the book and discuss with authors Rita João, Pedro [...]

“Design The Life You Love,” A Workshop Led by Ayse Birsel

Event Information

When: 27 Apr 2013, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Where: MFA Design Criticism Department, School of Visual Arts, 136 West 21 Street, 2nd Floor
Price: $250 per person, including lunch and materials

Design The Life You Love
On Saturday, April 27, 2013, join award-winning designer and co-founder of Birsel + Seck design and innovation studio, Ayse Birsel, for her acclaimed Design The Life You Love workshop.
In the article Forget New Year’s Resolutions. This Year Use Design Tools to Redesign Your Life, Linda Tischler, senior editor of Fast Company, writes, “My New [...]

Kurt Andersen, “Why Spy”

Event Information

When: 16 Apr 2013, 6:30 p.m.
Where: MFA Design Criticism Department, School of Visual Arts, 136 West 21 Street, 2nd Floor
Price: Free and open to the public; Registration required

Of the satirical 1980s magazine Spy, Dave Eggers has observed, “It might have remade New York’s cultural landscape; it definitely changed the whole tone of magazine journalism. It was cruel, brilliant, beautifully written and perfectly designed, and feared by all. There’s no magazine I know of that’s so continually referenced, held up as a benchmark, and [...]

VIDEO Rick Poynor, “Writing with Pictures”

Event Information

When: 9 Apr 2013, 6:30 p.m.
Where: MFA Design Criticism Department, School of Visual Arts, 136 West 21 Street, 2nd Floor
Price: Free and open to the public; Registration required

Rick Poynor, the British critic, writes about images, and selects and edits them for magazines, books, exhibitions, and his blog at Design Observer. He is also increasingly preoccupied, as a photographer, with making images himself. Just as designers can expand their practice through writing, he argues, so can writers in visual disciplines extend their practice [...]

Bill Nericcio, “Bandit, Succubus, Gigolo, Maid, & Fiend: 20th and 21st Century Latina/o Bodies in the Imagination of the Americas”

Event Information

When: 9 Apr 2013, 1:00–2:00 p.m.
Where: MFA Design Criticism Department, School of Visual Arts, 136 West 21 Street, 2nd Floor
Price: Free and open to the public

WORKING LUNCH at 1:00 p.m.
Tuesday, April 9
Bill Nericcio, Bandit, Succubus, Gigolo, Maid, & Fiend
20th and 21st Century Latina/o Bodies in the Imagination of the Americas

Bill Nericcio presents a brief multimedia presentation examining dominant trends in the representation of Latinas and Latinos in American popular culture—from Hollywood to Madison Avenue, specific and damaging visions of Latina/o [...]

VIDEO Virginia Postrel, “Meaning and Value in Commercial Culture”

Event Information

When: 19 Mar 2013, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Design Criticism MFA Department, School of Visual Arts, 136 West 21 Street, 2nd Floor
Price: Free and open to the public; Registration required

Meaning is one of the greatest sources of economic value and one of the least respected. Explanations of why people buy things “they don’t need” tend to fall back on stories of status signaling or simple delusion. But actual motives and meanings are much more complicated and interesting, and their results more dynamic and unpredictable. [...]

VIDEO Vince Aletti, “Face of Fashion: Fashion Photography, Art Direction, and Magazine Design”

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When: 12 Mar 2013, 6:30 p.m.
Where: MFA Design Criticism Department, School of Visual Arts, 136 West 21 Street, 2nd Floor
Price: Free and open to the public; Registration required

Photography critic and curator Vince Aletti will discuss fashion magazines’ troubled relationship with reality, and the ways in which, while providing a means of escape, their pages also act as sites of cultural flux, recording every minute shift in taste and style. Using examples of vintage and contemporary fashion editorials, Aletti will show how great photography and [...]

VIDEO Kati London, “New Forms of Engagement and Play in a Sensor- and Real-Time-Data-Dominated World”

Event Information

When: 26 Feb 2013, 6:30 p.m.
Where: MFA Design Criticism Department, School of Visual Arts, 136 West 21 Street, 2nd Floor
Price: Free and open to the public; Registration required

If plants can communicate using Twitter and the telephone, sharks in the Pacific Ocean can play games with people wherever they are, and local currencies can help connect disparate populations across a struggling city, then what might the next five years begin to look like? In this talk, Zynga Executive Producer Kati London will look [...]

VIDEO (MONDAY) February 18: Sandy Speicher, “Design for Learning”

Event Information

When: 18 Feb 2013, 6:30 p.m.
Where: MFA Design Criticism Department, School of Visual Arts, 136 West 21 Street, 2nd Floor
Price: Free and open to the public; Registration required

Education, just like any other sector, has many diverse challenges—all of which might be addressed by design. From creating new solutions for the classroom, to radically re-thinking entire education systems, Sandy Speicher will share examples of recent work from IDEO and discuss some of the ways this multidisciplinary design firm has been evolving its design process for [...]