Through Process

Joshua and Mitch welcome designer and educator Mig Reyes to the podcast to chat about teaching at The Starter League. We also discuss his time at Basecamp and Threadless, the sameness of design on the web, and why taking more time might make your work better. Mig also explains why Lorem Ipsum is bad, and why Chicago is a great design city.

Mitch and Namdev are joined by designer, author and educator Michael Rock. They discuss design as metaphor, being present in your work, writing as form, why you are your most important audience, and what students should be taught in design school. Michael also gives Mitch and Namdev an on-air design assignment to help explain graphic design.

Mitch and Josuha chat with Ian Lynam about his hybrid practice of teaching, writing, and designing. After considering the anti-intellectual trend that seems to be growing in graphic design culture, they discuss what needs to change in design criticism, education, and practice. They also discuss process-oriented teaching pedagogy, and Ian asks everyone to reveal their design heroes.

What makes a great design student great? Mitch and Namdev discuss some real ways students should approach school, and why being engaged and excited matters. We talk about time and space management, the benefit of having human relationships, and why your history classes are more important than you think.

Should every designer pay attention to design criticism? Mitch and Namdev are joined by design writer, critic, and educator Chappell Ellison to continue the discussion about design criticism and its place in design. We talk about the Design Observer redesign and backlash, haters, criticism in design school, and the Buzzfeedification of design.

Designer-speaker-entrepreneur Aaron Draplin joins Mitch and Joshua for a talk about authenticity, his influences, and motivating students (and yourself).

Mitch and Namdev revisit an early topic - critiques. What are they good for? What are they bad at? And what exactly are you supposed to do in class if you get rid of them? They also dig into new approaches they’re taking in the class room with assignments that help students to teach themselves and open-ended creative initiatives.

Mitch and Joshua welcome back design critic Chappell Ellison for a talk about feedback, groupthink, and why designers need to learn to accept criticism. We also have a group therapy session about the pitfalls of Twitter, social media, and opinions.

Mitch is joined by returning guest Nancy Bernardo to talk with designer and educator Elliott Earls. Elliott is the head of the 2D MFA program at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. In addition to an examination of why the Cranbrook experience is unique among graduate programs, we talk about critique methods, graduate versus undergraduate education, the problem with computers, and why making good work is so damn hard.

In the first of a two-part episode, Mitch and Namdev delve into process with capital P; not process as a generalization, but the specific Processes for making real projects. Namdev talks through two projects: "Past Objects" is a book he designed in 2010, and "R.U.R" is a poster he made last year after completely rewriting both his ideation methods and how he works with clients. The end result is a wide-ranging conversation about how something gets designed.

Mitch and Josuha look at the year ahead by talking about how design education and design practice live in different contexts, and how each should be approached differently. We also discuss the role of time in the design process, and how the painter Gerhard Richter approaches his work.

Mitch travels to Providence, Rhode Island and visits his alma matter: the Graphic Design department at the Rhode Island School of Design. There he speaks with longtime faculty member Lucinda Hitchcock and department head John Caserta about the radical changes the BFA program has gone through over the past couple of years. They talk about inquiry-based and on-demand learning, flexible outcomes, and transparency and knowledge sharing among faculty and students.

Why are students - who’ve often never had a client - so down on them? Is it something we’re accidentally teaching them? Mitch and Namdev discuss the differences between school and professional life (the good and bad), ways to make parts of academia more like client work without making worthless projects, and whether students should graduate straight into freelance instead of looking for a job.

Mitch and Josuha welcome back Jarrett Fuller to the podcast to talk about his decision to leave a job at Facebook and attend graduate school at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. We talk about what went into choosing MICA, what the program is like, the difference between a BFA and an MFA, and how it feels to be a teacher instead of a student.

In a special episode of Through Process, Mitch and returning guest Nancy Bernardo are joined by designer and educator Martin Venezky. We recorded this conversation with a live studio audience of RIT Graphic Design students. We spoke with Martin about his studio practice, teaching form, using photography, attending Cranbrook, and his influences.