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Jeremy Aynsley

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Curating German Graphic Design: Collections, Interpretations and Responses
Two recent exhibitions of German graphic design from 1890-1945--at the Victoria & Albert Museum, in London, in 1997, and at the Wolfsonian-Florida International University, in Miami Beach (ongoing through April 2001)--offer a reflection on the ways curating graphic design can participate in recent discourse about graphic design history while meeting the expectations of the visiting public.

Michael Bierut

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The Hoboken School of Design Criticism
Might we learn a new way to talk about design, historically and critically, from other disciplines? Here is an exploration of this question and, if nothing else, a pleasant musical conclusion to the day's events.

Andrew Blauvelt

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Looking Further: New Directions for Graphic Design History, Theory and Criticism
After the explosive growth of graphic design publishing, and in the wake of the historical and theoretical turns of recent decades, what productive role can design criticism play? In particular, are there new forms of writing that embody the potential of the poetic, the imaginary and other qualities not normally associated with conventional criticism?

Johanna Drucker

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The Languages of Graphic Design
The analogy between language and visual form became commonplace in 20th-century criticism and design curricula. By the end of the century, under the pressures of critical theory, the limitations of the formal bias inherent in the trope of "language" became apparent. Meanwhile the exigencies of electronic design have brought the notions of metalanguage (and metadata) into critical focus. Drucker examines the search for a set of systematic precepts as a foundation for an aesthetic of display and questions the way this concept has both benefited and constrained the exploration of visuality.

Tobias Frere-Jones and Jonathan Hoefler

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Two Meditations on "Gothic:" The Uses of Cultural History in Typeface Design
Hoefler discusses an obscure 19th-century typographic reform movement with which everyone in the world is secretly familiar, and Frere-Jones presents a work-in-progress based on unexamined lettering that can be found within one block in any direction

Neal Gabler

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Reconstructing Disney: Writing a Critical History of Popular Culture
The discussion of popular culture, unlike that of fine art, does not yet bear an implicit critical perspective. Gabler discusses how and why he chose to write a critical history of Walt Disney, how one brings to bear a critical perspective on a figure of popular culture and what that perspective can yield to us about our culture and ourselves.

Janet Hicks and Frank Martinez

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Rights and Wrongs: How to Reproduce Artifacts Legally
Hicks will outline the necessary steps to clearing rights for copyrighted works of fine art and the rules to remember when seeking to use such works or to make such works available for use by others. Martinez discusses the Copyright law and the doctrine of "fair use." The law recognizes that society sometimes derives a greater benefit when access to the creative work is allowed, even if the owner of the rights objects. How do the courts determine the nature and extent of fair use, and what types of works can reasonably be considered to be a fair use of another's copyrighted work?

Steven Johnson

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Playing by the Rules: A New Language for Web Design Criticism
In the past year or two, a new generation of websites has appeared, and it is challenging our assumptions about design criticism and the traditional connections between medium and message. These sites are rule-governed and adaptive, closer to ant colonies or video games than to the static pages of first-generation hypertext. How can criticism wrestle with a site that grows and evolves over time, a site that is as much about change and self-organization as it is about traditional "look and feel"?

Naomi Klein

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The Brand Boomerang
Branding is about more than logos and marketing. It is a mania that is transforming the economy from the factory floor to the superstore. In a quasi-spiritual quest for "brand image," "brand equity" and "brand meaning," many multinationals have spent the past decade pouring resources into marketing and yanking them from production, and our public spaces have been invaded by logos, our workplaces degraded by unprecedented insecurity despite booming economic times. But by putting all their eggs in the branding basket, multinationals have militarized their opposition and created the sharp juxtapositions between haves and have-nots that kick-started the anticorporate movement now spreading around the world, from Seattle to Prague.

Maud Lavin

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Multitasking: The Impact of Gender on Contemporary Design Practice
The multitasking practices of certain contemporary designers are the result of a confluence of factors: corporate needs, political and self-expressive goals, and technological convergence. While this is the case for some male as well as female designers, at this point in time the majority of influential designers with multitasking practices are women. Lavin asks why and looks at what the impact might be.

Ellen Lupton

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The Museum as Critic
Art museums today are being transformed as they expand beyond the limits of their traditional programs and audiences. Design has a role to play in this changing landscape, but museum curators must find ways to make the practices and products of design understandable. All exhibitions are a form of criticism, constructing a particular narrative out of an infinite array of possibilities. Lupton will talk about some of the general challenges facing museums today and show how these issues have been confronted in several curatorial projects, including "Mixing Messages," "Graphic Design in the Mechanical Age" and the "National Design Triennial."

Victor Margolin

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Download PDF African-American Designers in Chicago: Themes and Issues
Since the 1920s Chicago has had a rich tradition of African-American design: graphic design and commercial art, advertising, display design, commercial photography, cartooning, lettering and sign painting, exhibition design, interior design, architecture and the design of industrial products. Until recent years, however, most African-American designers in Chicago operated predominantly outside the professional mainstream. Margolin explores the concept of "discursive space"--the place where designers have been able to speak and be recognized for who they are--in the development of African-American design in Chicago.

Elvis Mitchell

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The Criticism of Culture: An Accessible Service for the Masses?
Mitchell will discuss the critic as a mediator of the relationship between the production of art and entertainment and the general public. In this role, the critic serves as both cultural interpreter and consumer guide.

Rick Poynor

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Download PDF The Time for Being Against
Most writing about graphic communication is aimed almost exclusively at the subculture of design. Trade publications exist to reflect the profession's self-image and avoid a critical stance, while mainstream media still regard graphic design as specialist exotica. It should be possible, however, to critique graphic communication, like architecture or film, as a ubiquitous form of visual culture that impacts us all. Ambitious writers, with a committed critical position, will be the key to prizing open a public space in the media's agenda.

Matt Soar

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Theory Is a Good Idea: The Resistance to Theory in Graphic Design Criticism, History and Practice
The resistance to theory evident in some talking and writing about design may actually serve to mask implicit theoretical biases. These biases can be signaled by terms such as "common sense" and "real language," or by the blanket dismissal of "-isms" and "academic-speak." Yet an aversion to overt intellectual engagement can only have a detrimental impact on the advancement of graphic design as something more than just one among many anonymous cultural industries. Advancement will actually depend on the overt engagement of theoretical ideas from outside sources--ideas whose value cannot be assessed by their perceived usefulness as part of the designer's conceptual toolbox.

For more information, call 212 807 1990 or e-mail programs@aiga.org .