Graphic Designers After Graphic Design with Jarrett Fuller

Hosts Giulia Donatello and Lee-Sean Huang welcome Jarrett Fuller, a designer, writer, educator, editor, and podcaster. He is an assistant professor and director of undergraduate programs in Graphic & Experience Design at North Carolina State University, director of the design studio twenty-six, and host of Scratching the Surface. He's edited or co-edited four books, and his writing has appeared in Fast Company, The Architect's Newspaper, Eye Magazine, and Design Observer. His work has won awards from Communication Arts and The Type Directors Club, and he was previously an editor at Eye on Design and a designer at Facebook, Warby Parker, and The Whitney Museum of American Art.

Drawing from his new book, Graphic Designers After Graphic Design: Designer as Publisher, Researcher, Change Maker, Performer, Artist (Princeton Architectural Press), Jarrett explains why graphic design is far from dead. They explore how the field's lack of strict boundaries is its superpower, letting millennial and Gen Z designers expand into publishing, research, activism, performance, and fine art.


In This Episode

* Graphic designers persist. Jarrett contrasts a future where design persists without human designers with one where designers thrive by reclaiming their practice beyond commercial silos.

* The "superpower" of a blurry discipline. Unlike architecture or industrial design, graphic design has always resisted definition. Jarrett argues that this is what allows the discipline to keep expanding and adapting to new cultural moments.

* Designer as publisher. Jarrett discusses how designers move beyond shaping the container for someone else's text and become cultural producers when they control the content and make it public.

* Social change and activism. Revisiting manifestos like First Things First, Jarrett shows how making complex political ideas visual and legible remains a fundamental form of social action.

* Performance, unscripted risks, and rapid prototyping. Drawing on his interview with Silvio Lorusso, Jarrett and Lee-Sean compare design research and public presentations to stand-up and improv, favoring risk, live feedback, and mistakes over slick corporate TED Talks.

* Resisting the "AI sameness trap." Reflecting on his recent Fast Company essay, Jarrett argues designers fear AI only because they've been designing for lowest-common-denominator sameness. He calls for radical experimentation and cultural difference.

* Going back to the roots (graphe). Jarrett revisits the Greek root of "graphic," reminding us that graphic design is medium-agnostic and encompasses studying, writing, drawing, and giving shape to the world.

* Flipping design education. Jarrett proposes redesigning design curricula to start with history, ethics, and critical theory, saving tools and software for last.


Resources

* Book: Graphic Designers After Graphic Design: Designer as Publisher, Researcher, Change Maker, Performer, Artist by Jarrett Fuller https://www.chroniclebooks.com/products/graphic-designers-after-graphic-design

* Article: Design is on its deathbed. Long live design!, Fast Company https://www.fastcompany.com/91582682/design-is-on-its-deathbed-long-live-design

* Jarrett Fuller's Website: https://jarrettfuller.com

* Scratching the Surface Podcast: https://scratchingthesurface.fm

* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jarrettfuller

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarrettfuller

* Book Recommendation: Fine Design by Scott Klinker https://www.setmargins.press/books/fine-design/

* Documentary Recommendation: Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars (1986): https://www.criterionchannel.com/robert-wilson-and-the-civil-wars

* Book Recommendation: How to Begin: Letters to a Young Artist by Edmund de Waal https://www.edmunddewaal.com/news/how-to-begin

* AIGA Design Podcast Feedback and Voice Memos: podcast@aiga.org