The SVA MFA Design Criticism program seeks to cultivate design criticism as a discipline and contribute to design discourse with new writing and thinking that challenges and inspires. Applicants come to the program with experience in design, architecture, journalism, and from academic backgrounds in art history, English literature, philosophy, and critical studies; alumni of the program go on to work as editors, writers, curators, researchers, bloggers, managers, entrepreneurs, and educators.

We are now accepting applications for Fall 2013 on a rolling basis, as space allows. Details of how to apply can be found on the Apply page of our Web site. Applications will be considered on a rolling admissions basis, as space remains available. Scholarships, ranging between $5,000 and $25,000, are offered to candidates, based on the merit of their applications.

If you missed the D-Crit Open House in November, you can watch a video of it here.

The 2013 D-Crit Conference, featuring graduating students of the SVA MFA in Design Criticism, will take place on May 11, 2013 at the Visual Arts Theatre in New York City.

Keynote speakers and moderators for this year’s conference will be announced in coming months. Topics to be addressed include: segregation in today’s built environment, problems and potential for graphic design exhibition, designed nature in the urban environment, product design’s social dimension, and how young architects are using literal representation in new and complex ways.

This is the fourth D-Crit conference organized by, and featuring, graduating D-Crit students. Join us for a richly programmed afternoon of provocation, insight, and inspiration that aims to re-chart the future of design discourse. There is no charge for admission, so sign up today to save your seat.

Click here to view the embedded video.

On November 17, over strong coffee, mimosas, and donuts, we discussed the philosophical aims, curriculum, and applications of this exciting two-year graduate program, and engaged in debate over such issues as the priorities for emerging design critics today, the changing media landscape, and the relationship between design criticism and practice. Watch the video here.

The world-renowned graphic designer, artist, and educator Milton Glaser, was our special guest and made an inspiring speech about devoting one’s life to the study of art and design. His remarks start at 11:50 in the video. BBC documentary producer Adam Harrison Levy and Metropolis columnist Karrie Jacobs, and author Steven Heller represented the star-studded D-Crit faculty, and shared highlights from their classes on “The Art of the Interview,” “Video Essays,” “Urban Curation,” and “Researching Design” respectively. Current students reflected on what they’ve learned so far, and a selection of recent graduates talked about how the MFA program has trained them for careers in design writing, curation, editing, management, and research.SVA MFA Design Criticism
 Open House & Information Session

Presentations by:
Alice Twemlow, D-Crit chair
Milton Glaser, Milton Glaser, Inc.
Adam Harrison Levy, documentary producer, writer, D-Crit faculty
Karrie Jacobs, urban critic, Metropolis contributor, D-Crit faculty
Steven Heller, author, MFA Design chair, and D-Crit co-founder
Lynda Decker, D-Crit Class of 2014
Katherine Roberts, D-Crit Class of 2014
Chappell Ellison, D-Crit alumnus, lead contributor, Etsy
Aileen Kwun, D-Crit alumnus, studio manager, Project Projects
Molly Heintz, D-Crit alumnus, managing director, Superscript
Avinash Rajagopal, D-Crit alumnus, assistant editor, Metropolis

If you were unable to attend the Open House, we are happy to arrange another time for you to tour the department and to attend a class or a Tuesday evening lecture. The department chair is always available to discuss your application with you. If you have specific questions and would like to speak to us directly, feel free to contact EmiIy Weiner at eweiner1@sva.edu or 212.592.2228.

GRADUATES
Class of 2010

Emily Leibin was a fellow at the Philip Johnson Glass House, and worked with Dan Rubinstein, editor of Surface magazine and the Museum of Art and Design this winter to research and write the publication associated with Dan’s new programs on contemporary design at the museum, The Home Front: American Furniture Now.

John Cantwell, when not freelance writing, has been teaching a “Writing: Style, Voice and Process” workshop at D-Crit, and is an adjunct professor at Rutgers University. Formerly, he was a senior writer and product developer at the start-up Grovo.com, and also worked on The New City Reader, which a weekly newspaper put out in conjunction with a show at the New Museum called “The Last Newspaper.”

Chappell Ellison, winner of the 2009 Winterhouse Design Writing Student Award is the lead contributor for The Etsy Blog, assistant editor and blogger at Design Observer, and a design columnist for GOOD. She also works within brand strategy for companies and individuals within the design realm.

Katie Hendersen is freelancing as deputy editor of content development for Pentagram’s website relaunch. She has also been guest blogging for the Art & Design section of Complex Magazine’s blog and contributed to the Rockport book Typography Referenced due out later this year.

Laura Forde is a visiting artist at Cooper Union School of Art, teaching juniors and seniors to understand what extent a designer can adopt a questioning stance, expressing a personal point of view while also meeting the needs of a client in a studio course titled “Advanced Design.”

Mike Neal is over on the West Coast, where it’s 72 degrees and sunny, teaching at California State University, Long Beach, and researching the history and formative politics of the two major graphic design and advertising organizations of Southern California, ADLA (Art Directors Club of Los Angeles) and AIGA/LA.

William Myers is manager of Business Development at The Museum of Modern Art and instructor in the history of collecting and exhibiting design at MoMA at Hunter College. He is currently writing Bio-Design, a book based on his 2010 D-Crit graduate thesis, to be published in Fall 2012 by Thames & Hudson.

Angela Riechers, who was awarded a $25,000 grant by AOL, is working to develop her multimedia project, Sites of Memory and Forgetting. She is also teaching Architectural Criticism at NYU, developing a new graduate-level class on graphic design and visual culture for D-Crit, working on a piece about motion design and baseball for Print Magazine, and writing profiles of the top five fashion creative directors in New York for Wallpaper.

Amelia Black works as a writer at International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF) and is co-curating an exhibit that explores the sensory experience of pollution in NYC for Laetitia Wolff’s ExpoTENial project.

Alan Rapp founded his own design studio, Alan Rapp Studio, which collaborates with artists, galleries, and publishers to package visual books and creative projects. In 2011, he concluded his tenure as managing editor of the New City Reader project at the New Museum by participating in a panel at the Columbia School of Architecture. He a recitation leader with Susan Yelavich at Parsons New School of Design and teaches critical thinking in the graduate Graphic Design department at Rhode Island School of Design.

Frederico Duarte, based in Lisbon, teaches product design masters students at ESAD-Caldas da Rainha, writes for many publications including Icon, item, and Eye, and has delivered lectures on his research into contemporary Brazilian design at Parsons the New School for Design and the Royal College of Art in London. He is developing an innovative exhibition titled “Human Resources” for Guimarães 2012, European Capital of Culture, featuring only five objects and over 100 video interviews with the people involved in their making.

Becky Quintal returned from The Netherlands where she was working after graduation at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in Rotterdam, to join the staff at Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) in NYC as a researcher.

Class of 2011

Amelie Znidaric is a curator at the Vitra Design Museum in Germany. She had been a regular contributor at Die Presse, an Austrian daily newspaper founded in 1848, with Adolf Loos among its former contributors and at Stylepark, one of the best-known German language online design platforms.

Sarah Cox is the founding editor of Curbed Detroit. Previously, she did press relations for the interactive media firm Local Projects and is writing a column for interior design and real estate web magazine Curbed.

Aileen Kwun, winner of the 2010 Winterhouse Design Writing Student Award, is a manager at Project Projects and blogs occasionally for Metropolis magazine. Along with fellow classmates Avinash Rajagopal, Molly Heintz and Vera Sacchetti, she co-founded Superscript, an editorial consultancy working with designers and architects. Read the latest Superscript press here.

Zach Sachs is the archivist of the Milton Glaser Design Study Center and Archives at the School of Visual Arts and a contributor to the closely watched blog Container List.

Stephanie Johnson is working as a public relations intern at Susan Grant Lewin Associates, creating publicity for clients and organizations like Dyson, Michael Graves, The Design Trust for Public Space, and MOCA. She is also a freelance restaurant reviewer for the New York Magazine website.

Saundra Marcel recently co-edited the new D-Crit Chapbook, At Water’s Edge, and is a contributor to AIGA’s online magazine, Voice: AIGA Journal of Design.

Molly Heintz is the managing editor of The Architect’s Newspaper and serves on communications committees for desigNYC, Art in General, and the Future Leaders Institute Charter School.

Michele Washington is research assistant for The Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation’s upcoming Gordon Parks retrospective. She has also recently published an essay and apple dumpling recipe in America I Am Pass it Down Cookbook.

Kimberlie Birks has recently published a short feature on playgrounds in EnRoute magazine and a profile of the curator of the Canadian pavilion at the upcoming Venice Biennale in Canadian Art magazine.

Vera Sacchetti is is managing editor of Domus magazine online in Milan, Italy. Previously, she was the head of international PR at Experimenta Design: The Lisbon Design Biennial, and a guest lecturer at D-Crit grad Frederico Duarte’s class at the Masters Program in Product Design at ESAD-CR, Portugal. She also authored an article about contemporary African design for the Portuguese cultural newspaper Proximo Futuro/Next Future.

Avinash Rajagopal is an assistant editor at Metropolis magazine. He’s just back from four days in Barcelona, where was one of five American bloggers invited by RED, an association of Spanish design product manufacturers, to meet established designers (like Javier Mariscal and the architect Bennedetta Tagliabue), and search out new talent (like the students at the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, or the young industrial designers at Surtido). He also co-founded and edits Little Design Book, a design criticism blog for India.

Class of 2012

Barbara Eldredge is a paid intern at the Museum of Modern Art’s Research and Development Department, a new branch of the museum jumpstarted by D-Crit faculty member Paola Antonelli. Their research is focused on museum innovation and identifying new partnerships, initiatives, and potential revenue streams.

Derrick Mead has contributed to Metropolis and Design and Culture, and recently addressed Bard College’s Language and Thinking Program on the topic Local Food Matters. Previously, Mead was the editorial fellow of Eric Fischl’s America: Now and Here project and a consultant on publications for the Solomon R. Guggenheim International Special Events Department.

Julia van den Hout manages Press and Exhibitions at Steven Holl Architects. Along with some collaborators, she is the founding editor of CLOG magazine. CLOG is about to publish its 4th issue (CLOG : RENDERING). Julia is now also working as a curator and editor with Fernando Romero, with whom she is launching a book in December at the Guggenheim Museum.

Cheryl Yau is a web designer at the software company Squarespace, creating templates for their latest website publishing platform. This Fall, she will be launching a website and online store for a new hand-sewn leather workshop, featuring small accessories designed and crafted by herself.

Amna Siddiqui is the producer at Institute of Play, managing the organization’s new game design endeavors within its Informal Learning department. Formerly, she was an editorial intern for the design and fashion publication Surface magazine, where after only a month, she already has an article in print.

Erin Routson a freelance art director for Ralph Lauren Fragrances at L’Oreal and maintains a position as senior researcher at the Public Policy Lab.She continues research and development on Where We Live is Called the Projects, her playlist and website about NYCHA public housing. She also writes about music for b3sci and Unbest.

Tara Gupta completed her editorial internship with Print magazine in May. She is currently developing a new model for fitness workouts in the city and in the process of launching her blog which addresses design in fitness culture (www.eastmeetszest.com). She was previously an intern at Susan Grant Lewin Associates, a public relations firm for art and architecture, assisting in cataloging press coverage and researching speaking engagements for clients.

Ann Weiser is producing a documentary film based on her thesis, “Main Street, USA and the Power of Myth.”  She is also at work on a proposal for a design history book on kitchen utensil, and meanwhile writing for the start-up magazine Reserved.

Phew! For more updates on students’ achievements, follow @DCrit on Twitter.

This summer, D-Crit launched a design writing intensive aimed at those who would like to refine their skills as thinkers, researchers and storytellers. For practicing designers, this is a chance to examine the profession and its impact through projects, articles and blog posts. For journalists and writers, this program offers methods and insights for understanding and writing compellingly about images, objects and spaces. Visit the Summer Intensive website for details!

Time Out NewYork: One-minute lecture: “How to Capture the Culture Zeitgeist” by Carolyn Stanley

Design Bureau: Dialogue: SVA’s D-Crit by Sarah Handelman

BaseNow: Interview with Alice Twemlow (part one and two) by Geoff Cook

étapes: international: Design Criticism Courses by Rick Poynor

Ready Made: Taking Notes: The 2011 D-Crit Conference at SVA by Lily Kane

Visual Arts Journal: Making the Write Decision by Angela Riechers

Core 77: SVA D-Crit Preview Q&As with Avinash Rajagopal, Vera Sacchetti and Molly Heintz

New York Times blog: Our Weekend Reading (and Watching and Listening): Vera Sacchetti, “Design Crusades”

Grafik: Critical Mass featuring Aileen Kwun, Alice Twemlow and others.

Huffington Post: At the High Line: A Different Kind of Book Club Begins by Paul Needham

The Atlantic: Why Google Will Never Beat Old Fashioned Research by Steven Heller

Disegno: Steve Jobs’ wardrobe (In D-Crit Chapbook Dress) by Barbara Eldredge

Untangling the sartorial signifiers and unique style of public figures from various corners of the pop culture circuit—including Julian Schnabel, Dora the Explorer, Steve Jobs and Muammar al-Gadaffi—Dress assembles eleven essays by writers from the School of Visual Arts’ pioneering Design Criticism MFA program, with illustrations by Peter Arkle. Alan Rapp considers Metallica frontman James Hetfield’s bogus descent from metal maverick to Armani-toting sellout; Stephanie Jönsson judges Pope Benedict XVI’s wardrobe more aesthetic than ascetic; and Angela Riechers recalls the moment when Karl Lagerfeld lost the Fan—and the fat. Whether art directed by stylists or left to their own devices, each subject gives ample evidence that even if clothes don’t make the man, they certainly have an impact on the way we perceive the man.

Comprising the second installment in D-Crit’s chapbook series, Dress includes essays that were generated in Criticism Lab, a course taught by Andrea Codrington Lippke, a writer specializing in visual culture and a regular contributor to The New York Times, among other publications. Lippke edited Dress with D-Crit ’11 graduate Aileen Kwun, a pop culture and design critic who received the Winterhouse Writing Award last fall for her analytical essay on the architectural nature of Lady Gaga’s fashion sensibility. Dress was designed by Walker Design and Matthew Rezac in Minneapolis. On November 16, the publication was officially launched with a series of readings and a party at the appropriately stylish Bumble and Bumble headquarters in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. View photos of the event on our Flickr pool.

Copies are available for purchase on Lulu.com ($10), or for free download.

Download the Dress press release for details.

At Water’s Edge, the first in the Chapbook series series, gathered essays written in author Akiko Busch’s “Reading Design” class about aspects of the New York waterfront. Find details and a link for free download on the Chapbook page.

Recent press:

Dexigner