The problem, as she told an AIGA Chicago audience at Morningstar last week, is that many designers are suspicious of criticism. Some view critics as “the mean kids in the class,” requiring a defensive stance. They see criticism as something to be “dealt with,” “managed,” or “handled”—just as one would respond to a wayward child or an unruly dog.

 

Ultimately, Twemlow asserts, many in the design community are confusing feedback with criticism. Feedback occurs during the design process, aimed at the individual designer. But criticism has a larger, more ambitious scope—it takes shape after a design is executed, ideally benefiting both the design profession and other audiences beyond it.

 

In Twemlow’s view, design criticism is, at its best, “the interrogation of aspects of the designed environment in order to discern what they mean, why and how.” It uses design as a launching point, with new work being a vehicle for examining new ideas and trends, wisdoms and fads. Criticism is good for us because it helps separate what’s harmful and wasteful from what’s meaningful and valuable.

 

Design criticism is not new as a discipline, but it’s recent enough as a field of study to be evolving quickly. A titan like Massimo Vignelli declares that design needs criticism to make it whole and mature, but Twemlow sees it somewhat differently. Criticism need not service the insecurities of design alongside other disciplines, nor act as its social consciousness. In her view, design can act as a “point of departure for a critique aimed at society and the world.”

 

Her presentation offered a number of thoughtful examples of how criticism can do just that. An object as seemingly mundane as a park bench can be a launching pad for analyzing not only its design, but also the deeper ideas embedded within—from the emotions and behaviors of its users to the social policies its design exemplifies. (That Twemlow could clearly write a compelling treatise on the bench is testimony to her own critical gifts.)

 

Critics don’t respond anew to any given design artifact—like reporters, they establish a beat. Twemlow focuses on examples of design that incorporate the participation and input of its audience. Her academic work studies a similar dynamic through the lens of critics themselves, revealing how design criticism is received and acted upon by the public—a two-way dialogue that she calls “a critical circuitry.” 

 

That circuitry has been in place for decades, she explained, from yesterday’s letter to the editor to today’s Amazon product review. Critics employ a range of strategies that include a personal voice, close observation, and even humor, which she says “disarms, disrupts, and allows for rebuilding.”

 

Twemlow’s passion lives at the natural extension of this circuitry—bringing design criticism beyond industry publications and into a wider public discourse. Her department’s graduate program is built for this purpose, seeking “to engage the broadest possible audience in the deepest implications of design.” The work of her students, from events and publications to academic theses, makes it clear that the discipline is becoming both sophisticated and accessible to new audiences. 

 

So design criticism may still have an image problem for the time being. But if Alice Twemlow has her way, more people than ever will be engaged in a critical dialogue—and that’s a good thing for design.

 

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Design Thinking is a biannual lecture series devoted to those who are driving this constant process of change. It features design leaders, educators, curators, and authors who are actively reshaping the creative process, directing currents in contemporary culture, and redefining the meaning of design.

 

About Alice Twemlow
Alice Twemlow is a British-born writer and educator based in New York. She is chair and co-founder of the Design Criticism MFA program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and also a PhD candidate in Design History at the Royal College of Art in London. Alice is a contributor to Design Observer and writes about design for publications including Eye, Design & Culture and the New York Times Magazine. She is the author of What is Design For? (Rotovision) and of essays for books such as The Barnbrook Bible and 60 Innovators: Shaping Our Creative Futures (Thames and Hudson), and the catalogue for “Graphic Design Worlds” at La Triennale Design Museum. She often serves on design and architecture juries and editorial boards, and moderates conferences such as the AIGA Educators Conference 2010 at North Carolina State University, the Tasmeem Doha Conference 2011 at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, the College Art Association Conference 2011 Conference in New York, and Abstract: The Future of Design in Media Conference in Portland Maine. Alice has recently spoken at the 2009 ICOGRADA conference in Beijing and at the QT series at MoMA.

 

AIGA Chicago thanks event chairs and chapter members, Jonathan McGlothin and Vida Sacic, for planning our 2011 Design Thinking Series!