Hasta La Ideas

This is the fifth and final post in a series of short interviews with renowned writers about the field of Writing & Commentary, a new category in the Core77 Design Awards. In this installment we speak to Ralph Caplan, author and former editor-in-chief of I.D. Magazine, columnist for Print and AIGA’s VOICE, a contributor to a multitude of publications, both design and general, and the 2010 recipient of the “Design Mind” National Design Award.

How important or valuable is it to honor design writing and criticism with an awards program?

Probably no more or less important than to honor similar activities. Anything that draws attention to design criticism is valuable. I suspect that the field of design already has too many awards. I feel hypocritical saying that, never having declined one; also I’ve served on a number of design juries. But it seems to me to be a valid observation now. However, the excellence of your current jury promises to make this one different.

Which qualities do you most appreciate in writing about design and architecture and what kinds of writing do you hope will surface from this call for entries?

I hope to be surprised by a kind of writing I hadn’t anticipated. The writing most needed would broaden and enlarge the concept of design both by identifying problems that designers have not yet addressed and by examining work by designers in areas—such as material sustainability and universal access—that previously neglected but are now becoming almost routine in professed design practice.

Name two writers, perhaps one historical and one contemporary, that you are influenced or challenged by.

In terms of influence: Paul Jacques Grillo, a brilliant design theorist, author of What is Design (1960), one of the first books on design I ever read. I was lucky to have found it early on. In terms of challenge: Many contemporary writers challenge me. Akiko Busch is the gentlest of design writers. Reading her always makes me feel that my own writing is needlessly harsh.

Tell us about a publication that features writing about visual culture, design, or architecture, that you’re enjoying reading right now.

Design Observer is the online magazine I regularly find most useful. The New York Review of Books although not primarily about design as such, covers the kind of issues design magazines and design writers ought to be concerned with. And when it does concentrate on design, someone like the admirable Martin Filler does it.

From the archives, check out our Editor-in-Chief Allan Chochinov’s review of Ralph Caplan’s collection of essays “Cracking the Whip: Essays on Design and its Side Effects.”

Visit the Writing & Commentary on the C77DA site to learn more about the category and jury. Entries for the Core77 Design Awards close April 10. Core77 recognizes that many design writers work freelance and if you feel you qualify for special consideration pricing for your entry, contact us at awards@core77.com and let us know.

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What are the ultimate goals when designing for social impact? We spoke to industrial designer Tasos Calantzis who leads our Social Impact jury about the team he’s assembled in Pretoria, South Africa. A former contributor to Core77, Tasos is CEO of design consultancy Terrestrial, and was behind Fabrication Africa which manufactured 21st century African products that created employment for South Africans, and Arivi, which creates safe and efficient energy products for low income homes in emerging markets.

Tell us a bit about your jury and why you chose these individuals.

Tasos Calantzis: I was looking for a group that would constantly find new angles to question from. The people I chose are exactly that—intellectually curious, imaginative, rigorous and experienced. So Allon is my start-up guru, McLean is my innovation guy and Seelan is my NGO/design management expert. They all run organizations and they share a passion for creating anew. This is an awesomely power-packed team!

What qualities will you be considering when evaluating each entry?

I expect entries to be well-informed, either through personal experience, working with users or deep research. They should be appropriate by considering their environments and users respectfully. They should be simple and practical—borrowing here and inventing there. The ideas must be able to grow to a larger impact and create a self-sustaining cycle. Those are the components of a great entry.

What are you most excited about discovering while judging the entries?

I believe that people have an amazing capacity to improve life on our planet despite the suffering in our world. I love seeing how visionary people with big hearts seek to bring lasting change. I’m excited to see the ways in which the entrants are carrying that light.

Where do you see the future of this field heading?

Well I believe that social impact interventions should seek to change the fundamentals so that people are able to solve their own problems. Design is a great approach to doing that on a small and large scale. Of course, funders set the rules to a large extent and I’ve seen some large foundations embracing design principles and benefiting. I hope that this is part of a move to smarter funding. I hope that the shift we’re seeing in the business domain; where creativity, experimentation and holistic thinking are becoming acceptable, will be more prevalent in the social impact sphere. I have no doubt that such a shift will raise the success rate enormously.

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This is the third post in a series of short interviews with renowned writers about the field of Writing & Commentary, a new category in the Core77 Design Awards. Here we speak to Alexandra Lange , a critic, journalist, author and architectural historian. As well as teaching architecture criticism at SVA, Alexandra regularly contributes to Design Observer and has written for The Architect’s Newspaper, Icon, Metropolis, New York Magazine and The New York Times.

How important or valuable is it to honor design writing and criticism with an awards program?

Alexandra Lange: It’s very important. A) Everyone loves to win an award. B) anything that helps attract attention to our small field, and to the best writing in that small field, is valuable.

Which qualities do you most appreciate in writing about design and architecture and what kinds of writing do you hope will surface from this call for entries?

I’ve always appreciated clarity—why be coy?—and lately I find myself drawn to description. How you move through a space, how it looks, how it feels, the details that give it personality. You can pack a lot of criticism into what seems like a walking tour, including a walking tour of an app. I also hope the entries reflect the breadth of what design criticism can be about, and how intertwined design is with more obvious popular culture.

Name two writers, perhaps one historical and one contemporary, that you are influenced or challenged by.

Well, one of them is on the jury: Michael Sorkin. When I first read “Exquisite Corpse,” the collection of his Village Voice reviews, I was blown away by how funny and how strident they were. I appreciate their energy, their pragmatism, and all the good lessons about real buildings along the way. Historically I feel challenged by Reyner Banham, for many of the same reasons. I love the diversity of his topics, and again, the humor. I would like to be thought of as funny, but that’s a tough row for both critics and women.

Tell us about a publication that features writing about visual culture, design, or architecture, that you’re enjoying reading right now.

I have to admit, the only publication I read really regularly all the way through is The New Yorker. And its writing on design usually makes my blood boil. Judith Thurman’s piece in the recent Style issue, on Prada and Schiaparelli, was terrific, and I think the concept she discusses of “Ugly Chic” has applicability far beyond fashion. Two years ago I wrote a proposal for a book on bad taste in design called “Ugly,” but no one liked it.

Visit the Writing & Commentary on the C77DA site to learn more about the category and jury. Entries for the Core77 Design Awards close April 10. Core77 recognizes that many design writers work freelance and if you feel you qualify for special consideration pricing for your entry, contact us at awards@core77.com and let us know.

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Last week we featured our interview with Alice Twemlow, Jury Captain of the brand new Writing & Commentary category for the Core77 Design Awards which asked whither design criticism? This week we present a series of posts that further explores the field and its relevancy today through the insights of notable writers who have built careers writing about design. First up, author, columnist and Eye magazine founder, Rick Poynor.

How important or valuable is it to honor design writing and criticism with an awards program?

Rick Poynor: It’s a worthwhile initiative and this is a good time to be doing it. First, because it sends an encouraging signal to writers, particularly to younger writers wondering whether it’s worth writing about design, and how far they might be able to go with it. Second, because it sends out a strong message to designers (who are well used to the idea of professional awards) that critical commentary has a vital part to play in any intelligent and thriving field of cultural activity, including design. It’s a reminder that we should make a point of searching out and reading the best critical writing on design. We should support it and value it.

Which qualities do you most appreciate in writing about design and architecture and what kinds of writing do you hope will surface from this call for entries?

Straightforward explanatory writing, or meandering essays with lots of personal references, are easy options. The critical writing I respect above all and most want to read is fully engaged writing with the knowledge, insight and conviction to challenge the status quo and expose the flaws in a thing, a trend, or an idea. I often wonder how much appetite there is to do this kind of writing in design, or to publish it, because very little appears. There’s a nervousness about critical criticism that reflects a larger cultural uncertainty about taking a strong stand and being seen to criticize others. People think skepticism is “negative.” I see it as positive and usefully instructive. If a phenomenon is taken for granted by most people and left unquestioned, then that’s likely to be a sign that it merits closer critical investigation. Design is a field where writing can quickly lapse into promotional PR. I would like to see a lot more critical design writing that’s prepared to lock horns with its subject.

Name two writers, perhaps one historical and one contemporary, that you are influenced or challenged by.

I have just been re-reading Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others (2003) in preparation for a panel discussion. I first read Sontag’s essays in my early 20s and her depth of cultural knowledge, her intellectual rigor, her clarity, and the way she positioned herself as a public intellectual rather than disappearing into the academy, is a great inspiration. I go back to her writing often.

The British writer and publisher Robin Kinross has always been a big influence. He’s a few years older than me and I met him when I was working on Blueprint magazine in the late 1980s. As well as reading his writing for years, I have also commissioned articles by him. I recently interviewed Kinross for Eye magazine about his work. His writing is highly informed, deeply serious and always colored by his distinctive sensibility, values and way of thinking. Anyone attempting to write about typography and graphic design should study his essays.

Tell us about a publication that features writing about visual culture, design, or architecture, that you’re enjoying reading right now.

I’m reading an advance copy of I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts, a collection of essays by the cultural critic Mark Dery. His ruthless dissection of American dreams and nightmares takes in a vertiginous array of topics—toy guns, the Super Bowl, the fantasies of Star Trek fans, Lady Gaga, the zombie apocalypse, dental horror, IQ tests, and Madonna’s big toe. He’s marvelously alive to the nuances of American visual culture and his prose is explosively visual too. Dery is one of the great stylists of contemporary critical writing and every sentence zips and fizzes with clever new connections and original aperçus; the manner is so much his own that you’d know it was him without having to check the name.

Visit the Writing & Commentary on the C77DA site to learn more about the category and jury. Entries for the Core77 Design Awards close April 10. Core77 recognizes that many design writers work freelance and if you feel you qualify for special consideration pricing for your entry, contact us at awards@core77.com and let us know.

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Food is such an essential facet of our lives that we often overlook its significance, lasting impact, and the potential for improving food systems. Yet recent years have seen a major shift towards a broader consideration of our foodways, and along with chefs, designers and aspiring foodies alike, the Core77 Design Awards is proud to recognize Food Design as a new category for our 2012 program. Jury captain Marc Brétillot is on the vanguard of the movement, participating in everything from artisanal culinary practices to the creation of new products to innovation consulting for the food industry, not to mention organizing international events and performances for galleries and museums. The renowned Food Designer shared his thoughts on where food and design intersect, and why every single one of us has a stake in this category

We would like to thank Earlwyn Covington for collaborating with Marc on this interview. Earlwyn, an Adjunct Professor at ESAD at Reims, co-founded Thinking Food Design with Marc.

Core77: Tell us a bit about your jury and why you chose these individuals.

Marc Brétillot: There are four succinct and complementary visions and practices that make up this jury:

– Caroline Champion (www.exploratricedesaveurs.com) is an aesthetic philosopher who is passionate about culinary culture and is able to cross boundaries to explore what is happening in food within different practices.

– Alexandre Gauthier (www.lagrenouillere.fr) is a contemporary & creative chef who is a fervent enthusiast about the ritual of eating, the textures and savors that come from the plate, the palate, and the environment in which we eat.

– Alok Nandi (www.aloknandi.net.) is a consultant and scholar who has developed strategies around the architecture of taste. His vision is unique and brings to mind how food can interact with memory, the everyday, the banal and more.

…and myself: [As recently as] 15 years ago in France, Food Design was relegated to cooking schools. I have been developing this discipline at art and design schools across France & Europe with the support of projects that are dedicated to interdisciplinary collaborations with chefs, designers, artists, industrialists, manufacturers, architects, politicians and many more. www.marcbretillot.com

Together, we will be able to select [worthy winners through a collaborative] way of thinking that is beyond our own individual proclivities. We will [make our decision over] a wonderful dinner where all things are considered!

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