Lingua Franca: The 2014 D-Crit Conference

Designing a Country from Scratch: Nation Branding in South Sudan

presented by Anne Quito

Design for emer­gence oper­ates on a dif­fer­ent set of cri­te­ria steeped in the pol­i­tics and urgency of its time. I believe that in this sce­nario, hav­ing these so-called safe choic­es is not a bad thing. During this time of emer­gence it’s good that we have defined a graph­ic lan­guage of nation­hood, expe­di­ent vari­a­tions of heraldic tra­di­tions of crests, car­touch­es, and coats of arms. A lin­gua fran­ca of legitimacy.

Khaleeji Design: An Imported Aesthetic?

presented by Nawar Al-Kazemi

If you are giv­en the task to lec­ture on design some­where in the Middle East, do you think you’ll need to tai­lor your approach? Maybe think about your ref­er­ences, the lan­guage, the vast­ly dif­fer­ent back­ground? The answer most prob­a­bly is yes.” But the real­i­ty of design edu­ca­tion in the Middle East, and more specif­i­cal­ly the Gulf Region, prove otherwise.

Wrapping Sentences Around Things

presented by Nicholson Baker

So that’s what we’re try­ing to do, I think, we devo­tees who write about the designed and pen-outlined world. We’re just wrapper-uppers at Crate and Barrel. We’re pack­agers, tem­po­rary pack­agers. And our cho­sen pack­ing medium—sentences, paragraphs—sometimes obscures as much as much as it helps us see.