Jessica Barness is a design theorist, educator, and writer whose research interests include interactive environments, sound, and critical practices. She's currently an associate professor in the School of Visual Communication Design at Kent State University and her writing has appeared in Design and Culture, Visual Communication, Dialectic, and more. In this episode, Jessica and I talk about her career as a practicing designer before making the shift to academia, the state of design discourse, and the differences between critical design, critical making, and design research. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

84. Jessica Barness

Scratching the Surface is a podcast about design, theory, and creative practice. Hosted by Jarrett Fuller, each episode features wide-ranging conversations with designers, architects, writers, academics, artists, and theorists about how design shapes culture. Previous guests include architecture critic Paul Goldberger, MoMA design curator Paola Antonelli, architect and OMA partner Reinier de Graaf, Pentagram partner Michael Bierut, RISD President Rosanne Somerson, writer Kurt Andersen, and designer Jessica Helfand. Featured in Architectural Digest, Dezeen, Curbed, and Eye. New episodes every other Wednesday.