James Goggin is a designer, educator, and writer. He runs his own design studio with his partner, Shan James, under the name Practise and recently joined the faculty of RISD’s graphic design department. He previously worked as Director of Design, Publishing and New Media at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and has taught at Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem, The Netherlands, and at ECAL in Switzerland. His writing on design has appeared in numerous publications and he currently serves as art director and is on the editorial board of the architecture publication, Flat Out. In this episode, James and I talk about closing the gap between theory and practice, the value of writing in his design process, and subverting the traditional lecture/slideshow format.
Scratching the Surface is made possible entirely by listener support.
Support the show on Substack!
Jarrett’s new book Graphic Designers After Graphic Design was just published by Princeton Architectural Press! The book, which features interviews, profiles, and case studies of emerging and mid-career graphic designers working in non-traditional practices, makes the case for aa new, expansive understanding of graphic design. To talk about the book, Draw Down’s Kathleen Sleboda turns the tables and interviews Jarrett about the ideas behind the book, the writing and design process, and the generational argument that emerges from the collection.
Listen →
Will Hunter is an Adjunct Instructor and Executive in Residence at New York University in the Schack Institute of Real Estate where he is leading the Building Better Cities Collaborative, a two-semester fellowship that brings mid-career professionals across disciplines to help cities be more sustainable, equitable, and prosperous. Before this, he was the founder and chief executive of the London School of Architecture, a fully-accredited alternative model for architecture education. In this conversation, Jarrett and Will talk about the origins of the LSA and the architectural environment it was responding to, how new models of education and can create new models of practice, and how design can find new ways to work with other disciplines.
Rathna Ramanathan is the Provost of Central Saint Martins and the Executive Dean, Global Affairs at the University of the Arts London. Over the last few years, Rathna has led a complete restructuring of CSM, creating a new model to think about art and design education. Trained as a graphic designer, her research focuses on publishing and intercultrual communication and she previously served as Dean of the School of Communication at the Royal College of Art. In this conversation, Jarrett and Rathna talk about the new CSM structure and how its “Schools of Thought” model flips our understanding of disciplinary study, the influence of graphic design on her work, and why art and design education needs to change to reflect this current moment.
