The State of Design Criticism

I love design, but not all things about design. I have always struggled with understanding the importance and placement of two design phenomenon: the professional design organization (like the IDSA) and design criticism. A recent blog entry on the Design Observer put the later of those things in an interesting and new light and thus revealed a trend that I feel helps implicitly define/explain some design organizations.

Rick Poyner was discussing a panel event where the act of design criticism was discussed. The most interesting point that Mr. Poyner points out is "that design writing was so deeply entrenched within the design field, so closely tied to its professional goals, that the writing's ultimate effect would always be promotional rather than critical."

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