There's an interesting discussion taking place at Core 77 about industrial design in the media. Participants include I.D.'s Julie Lasky, New Yorker's John Seabrook, writer Kurt Anderson, designer Bruce Mau, and Moma design curator Paola Antonelli.
John Seabrook: It is very tedious, both for the writer and the reader, to describe in words the color, shape, texture, material, and style of an object — when a picture could communicate most of this information in a fraction of a second. And yet, when you are writing for an audience that knows nothing of the context within which decisions about design take place, and has no feel for the culture out of which design choices emerge, then one has little choice but to scatter one's seed over such barren ground as mere description. Ergo, most cultural critics choose to spend their time writing about something else. Janet Jackson's breast, say.
