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09.27.19

Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand | Audio

Episode 111: The Great British Crit

Every single person Jessica spoke to at Design Observer’s The Design of Business | The Business of Design conference watches the Great British Bake Off — except Michael. But he should, Jessica says, both because of how it creates “a national conversation about something other than memory, trauma, forgetting and anger,” and for what you can learn from the bench crits.

Michael says:

The art of giving and getting a critique in a way that's useful and productive and advances the work is not a small thing. And to learn how to do it well — to learn how to give the critique well and to learn how to get the most out to critique when it's been given to you — is really a skill that is, I think, very underrated.

Also mentioned this week:

Sophie Gilbert, Atlantic, The Great British Bake Off Keeps the Dream Alive
Jacobin, The Great Socialist Bake Off
How to Crit
Noel Fielding Sings the Milk Song
The Stedelijk Museum, Wim Crouwel: Mr Gridnik
The Observatory: Episode 95, Crouwel and Jan van Toorn
Design Observer, The Debate: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Rick Poynor, Design Observer, Wim Crouwel, The Ghost in the Machine
Total Design, In Remembrance of Wim Crouwel
Emily King, Fantastic Man, Wim Crouwel
New York Times, Cokie Roberts obituary
NPR, Cokie Roberts Pioneering Female Journalist Who Helped Shape NPR Dies at 75
Nina Totenberg, NPR, The Personification of Human Decency

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More from Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand

Episode 127: Fear and Longing
Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters; Hrishi Hirway and Mike Errico; The Quiz Broadcast; Shakespeare and Co. Project

Episode 126: Screens and Dreams
Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration; Unorthodox; My Brilliant Friend; The Affair; Anil Dash on the dangers of social media; Anna Wiener on Silicon Valley; quarantine dreams

Episode 125: Zoom Aesthetics
Zoom aesthetics and COVID-19; Kyle Chayka on minimalism; Deborah Berke on shared spaces; Jessica Salfia’s poem “The First Lines of Emails I’ve Received While Quarantining”; Megan O’Grady on artistic recluses

Episode 124: That Thing You Do
Making art and design during the COVID-19 pandemic; Christoph Niemann and Daniella Zalcman; Adam Schlesinger; spec scripts for Larry David

Episode 123: Closing Doors, Opening Doors
Looking at COVID=19: Flattening the curve, Washington Post designers Harry Stevens on visualizing social distancing, Alissa Walker on how dots are people, Stephen Sondheim at 90

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