The first MFA Design Criticism Open House took place on October 27, 2007. Around 40 prospective students gathered to drink mimosas, discuss the program, and hear an introduction from department chair Alice Twemlow and short presentations by faculty members Emily Gordon, Steven Heller, Alexandra Lange, and Philip Nobel. [Read more about D-Crit faculty members]


OPEN HOUSE TRANSCRIPTION (STARTING WITH Q & A):

Ralph Caplan: The course I'm planning is intended to teach critics how to acquaint people to think critically about design. By thinking critically about design I mean something very simple, because I think in culture generally it is not necessarily treated that way. Like some of the other faculty members, I came to design criticism through the back door. I was working for a humor magazine called Bounty, which was a very funny magazine to work for. It folded and I desperately needed a job and somebody told me about a magazine called Industrial Design. At that point [mid-1950's] there was simply no precedent for writing critically about design.

Steven Heller: Now, of course, things have changed and there are a lot of jobs for design criticism right now—more magazines, more newspapers, and certainly more internet sites are engaged in design writing. Some of that is criticism, some is journalism, and some of it is just blogging. But there's a lot of it because design is part of popular culture and because popular culture, particularly in the United States, is business and entertainment, there will be a lot more people who will be interested in exploring it beyond a superficial level. We're a new program and so it's comparable to when design history began to be taught in the 1980's: Now every art and design school has a design history class. Once it started happening people agreed that we need this to help us understand what we're doing. And every time somebody says, "we need to understand more about this..." an industry erupts. There's an awful lot out there to be tapped and, being the first program, we're going to be on the top of tapping it.


Q: This program is an MFA. What is the difference between an MA and an MFA?
Alice Twemlow: An MFA is considered a terminal degree that allows you to work right away. An MA allows you to pursue a more academic path, to go on to do a Ph.D for example. What we are planning is a dual MFA/MA where in the second year you can make a choice to take the more scholarly route or continue with the MFA classes.


Q: You all represent a range of design interests and disciplines and I was wondering what within the curriculum will guide students toward a focus. Obviously there will be a range of design interests, be it architecture, graphic design, etc. among the students.
Alice Twemlow: That's what we're trying to provide for with our faculty, with each representing a different area. If there is a subject area that we don't represent with a whole class, then perhaps we'll represent it with a lecturer or an advisor. For example the Design History course taught by Russell Flinchum, who has his Ph.D. in Industrial Design History, will cover a very broad range in industrial design history. But since he doesn't know about game design, we will bring in a specialist in game design to teach that section of the class. We're doing our very best to cover all aspects of design.

Steven Heller: I think it's also very important to have people interested in industrial design to write about graphic design and those into graphics to write about architecture. This is all muscle building: You have to work to build a strength and if you can write about one thing you can write about another thing and bring your point of view to it.


Q: To follow up with that, will you intend to allow critics from outside the field of design criticism to comment?
Alice Twemlow: Yes we will. I think it would be very interesting to hear from music critics, for example, film critics, food critics—In fact, Elaine, since you're here, do you want to say little bit about the course you'll be offering in food and restaurant criticism?

Elaine Louie: I want to take students to three restaurants because I think a lot of design criticism is felt: You learn how to write about it through your body, through your senses through flavor, light, through skin. I want students to figure out what the designer of the restaurant was trying to do and write some kind of intelligent 500-word criticism using their senses to make their experience come alive to the reader.


Q: Will you have a relationship with The MFA in Art Criticism at SVA?
Alice Twemlow: It's taken a while for that program to build up speed, but now it's headed on the right track—it's a very exciting moment. And we're going to make a connection. We may end up organizing lecture series together, for example. However, even though we'll listen to these other critics, and study their work, at the end of the day, we'll have to focus back on ourselves and figure out really what are the vocabularies and working methods that are particular and unique to a design critic.


Q: To what extent will students have provision to do actual design studio work?
Steven Heller: What we had always planned is that because this is an MFA, we take the studio part seriously, so there would be design work involved in the sense that anyone who decides that the platform for their criticism is an exhibition will have to figure out a way to design it; They can either design it themselves or with collaborators. They can draw from the MFA Design, MFA Illustration, or the undergraduate Film and Video programs. This campus is full of people who are willing and happy to collaborate if you ask them. If you're going to do a book, a film or a blog anything else that requires a structure, you'll have to do it yourself or find someone who you can work with. So in a sense you'll have to be an art director.


Q: You brought up Wallpaper [in the initial presentation] and all these other magazines that seem to take a very aesthetic approach to design criticism. Is there a bigger picture of criticizing/investigating design as an empowerment tool, or as an emerging field?
Steven Heller: We'll be teaching versatility—you have to be an all around player. There are certain scholars who will focus totally on one area and write that definitive book which is really important for culture, but there's also the need to be able to go from that Wallpaper piece to something that's more substantially critical and the student will hopefully be able to juggle all of these things. There has to be a real balance.


Q: What are you looking for in applicants?
Alice Twemlow: We're looking for someone who is ideally already engaged in criticism or writing. And if they're not we'd encourage them to jump into it—start their own blog, start contributing to magazines in whatever way. Because this program will be very intensive and there'll be a great deal of writing to do. So any way you can get yourself a head start, that would be useful. In the application process, we ask that you submit an essay about an aspect of design and that is where we'll find out what you're interested in. So it'll be a mixture of assessing your prior experience and this essay that you submit.

Steven Heller: There will also be an interview, and that will be very important, too. It would be great to find a person who has been in the field and is looking to hone in their skills.


Q: Some of the people here said that they were designers and what do you say about those that don't have a lot of writing experience?
Alice Twemlow: I'd reiterate that, as writing is a core element of this program, anyone currently uncomfortable with writing should do whatever they can to get comfortable: start a blog, contribute articles to a friend's magazine, attend a non-fiction or fiction writing class.

Steven Heller: Remember this is the first year of a very new idea so we're being a transparent as we can. We're going to see people in the interview and they will define who our ideal student is. When someone comes in our door and interviews with us, there's going to be this "a-ha" moment. This first class is going to be very experimental, like our MFA Design as Author program was ten years ago. That first class was an amazing experience. For those who have never had the experience of putting a program together, they're amazing—It's like having a baby! It's really an exciting event for everybody involved. Those first classmen/classwomen will be helping to build the paradigms for the program, which will continue to change no matter what. We're going to be setting standards and the students thesis projects will be part of that measure. We're really excited to what people come up with for their thesis projects.

Alice Twemlow: One applicant who came into meet us the other day lives in Dubai and she's very interested in started a magazine there which deals with local design issues for rather than always having to refer to the Western design world. This sounds like a really interesting thesis project.


Q: In terms of the conference, who is the design criticism conference for? To whom is it directed and what sort of vision do you have for it?
Alice Twemlow: It'll be an important event, a very public kind of exposure of the thesis work of the students. If they're smart about it students will invite people from whom they'd like to get jobs. I would like to have professional critics and writers involved as well, as keynote speakers and as respondents. I think it would be really interesting to grow it over the years so that it becomes an increasingly public forum.

Emily Gordon: At The New Yorker Conference, which just started this year, they had all kind of critics there, film people, science people—it was very much in that way a design conference where diverse people can bounce ideas off each other. I think this conference could be similar.

Steven Heller: I got an email from a student who asked "what do you like about writing critically" and my answer was "writing critically." But the other part of the answer was I also like being edited critically, and being published and critiqued. And so this conference is not only about presenting but it's also about getting feedback, and not just on the web, where most feedback is coming from now, but from feedback sessions at our conference. And whether that's for the mass public or a more cognoscente public, we'll figure that out as it happens. But it's a blank slate, which is nice.

Alice Twemlow: I've organized quite a few conferences and I really enjoy the format and I think there's masses of potential in them as a medium for design criticism. In the class in which the students develop this conference we'll be looking at the history of conferences as well as at some contemporary examples, asking how the very form of the conference might be improved and evolved.


Q: Will the program's new space add to collaboration between students?
Steven Heller: Yes, that's why it's set up that way. In fact, originally the classrooms were somewhere else, and six drawings later—after critiquing the architect because there was not enough light—he changed it. Students will be seated in open-plan seating designed to resemble a reading room or an editorial office of a magazine. There are plenty of spaces for meetings and collaborative projects.


Q: For those of us that have full-time professional commitments, what kind of structure and flexibility do you have to accommodate our careers?
Steve Heller: We usually tell our students in MFA Design not to take jobs but they do because they have to pay for the program. So if you can time manage and get your work done, the classes are at night. So if you don't fall asleep in class it's good.

Alice Twemlow: It might be challenging because, as I said it's pretty intensive program, Maintaining a part-time job would be possible; a full-time job would be extremely hard.


Q: I know a lot of grad programs want you to have a few years of working experience. I'm just finishing undergrad, do you recommend a few years of work experience? Do you think you could bring enough to the table having just come out of an undergraduate degree?
Alice Twemlow: We'd like a mix in the group, with students who have had working experience and others who haven't. I think if you're passionate about doing it, you shouldn't wait.

Steve Heller: Our experience is that particularly in the 24/7 studio, if you're younger somebody always takes you under their wing, and if you're older someone always takes you under their wing. It's this very communal situation. You get to know the people you're with and that's what's very exciting. From my experience with MFA Design, it's always amazing how nine out of ten times the dynamic works. So don't be afraid of being right out of school.


Q: Why do you think this kind of academic program appeared here, in an art school?
Steven Heller: I've been involved in SVA ever since they threw me out here, they let me in two years later to teach (go figure). The president and vice-president of the school are very open to new ideas and they're willing to take a chance and put support behind that chance. It's happening here because they're willing to let it happen. They care about the quality of education. They let the Chairs be relatively autonomous, so there's no overlay, it's not like a university where we would never be able to do a Design Criticism program that wasn't part of the Humanities department. It's impossible or at least improbable. But we were able to do this and they even said "would you like two degree programs?"


Q: Why do you think that Design Criticism is right for someone who, for example was a designer or studied another subject where criticism wasn't part of the curriculum?
Steven Heller: I think we should all answer this, because it's an interesting question: "Why do you want to do something that you weren't necessarily trained to do?" It really all comes down to communication—it's about wanting to speak in other voices. I wish I could speak a lot of other languages. I think a designer, like every other human being, wants to speak in as many vocabularies, languages and idioms as possible.

Alexandra Lange: I don't know about all designers, but I know architects can end up being very insular in their work. Many architects I know don't even read that many architecture magazines, they work really hard, and don't necessarily have that many opportunities to go back out into the world once they've started their practice. I think the act of writing criticism is a way of reinserting themselves back into the world and reengaging with work that isn't their own.

Philip Nobel: Is the question also "Why write?" Why shouldn't you? You write because the world is an interesting place and there's nothing more interesting than holding something up and determining what forces make it that shape.

Rob Giampietro: I write because I like to read beautiful writing, which is really hard to create. And I feel that design writing can be just as moving as design.


Q: Has any thought has been given to allowing students from other universities to take classes in the program?
Steven Heller: It's a good question and, after consideration, we've made a policy in other programs not to. It's not that we want to be exclusive, but it's an odd one for the students who are in the program and dedicated to the program. To be fair to the other students we said no. There may well be opportunities for students from other universities to be involved; it's not like you audit a class, but you take part in an event. Or write in a blog for which everyone is invited to write. If more people were to take part in that, there would be a conversation about students and what students are doing here, there and everywhere.

Alice Twemlow: When the twelve students start this program, you start a journey and you move through all its experiences together. You would be frustrated I think to only be dipping in and out.

Steven Heller: That said, as a student at SVA, you're entitled to two audits per year in any other SVA programs that will have you.


Q: I have an industrial design background. Are there going to be any classes discussing manufacturing processes or will you be bringing in any guests to discuss related ideas?
Alice Twemlow: We have a Visiting Lecturer Series, but we've not yet considered anyone from a factory background. That's an interesting idea.

Steven Heller: That brings me to one quick point about when I was at a jurying at AIGA. It was the book jury and we invited a bookseller to be part of the group, and she had a totally different take. While we were all speaking about aesthetics, she was talking about the manufacturing of books. This was the year of the matte cover, and turns out matte covers were terrible for fingerprints—she'd have to send returns back all the time. In fact, her remarks pointed to part of the design process and thus part of the critical view.


Q: In terms of the structure of the guest lecturers, will they be around to help with workshops or classes? What's their responsibility?
Alice Twemlow: The real responsibility of a guest lecturer is to give their lecture and to take questions. But sometimes they'll stay longer. For example, Rick Poynor may come to New York and stay for a week, which will give students a bit of time to connect with him.

That's it for now. Thanks for coming. Remember you can contact us in the department any time to ask more questions.

Steven Heller: It's going to be a lot of fun.