Here's your chance to get the scoop on the graduate program that we can't stop talking about. This Saturday, November 7, the School of Visual Arts' Design Criticism department will host an afternoon of presentations and informal discussion about its MFA in Design Criticism, better known by its rapper name, D-Crit. Students will talk about their experiences so far, D-Crit chairperson Alice Twemlow will provide a program overview, and faculty members Akiko Busch, Andrea Codrington, Steven Heller, and Phil Patton will discuss the courses they teach. We hear that there will be drinks (mimosas!) and snacks (doughnuts!), and if you ask nicely, we suspect they'll let you peruse the twelve-volume reprint set of Domus that we spied in one of the D-Crit classrooms on a recent visit. Get all of the details here. Can't make the open house? Click "continued..." for a look at the remaining events in the department's stellar fall lecture series.

Unless otherwise noted, lectures take place on Tuesdays from 6:00-7:30 p.m. at the School of Visual Arts in New York City: 136 West 21st Street, 2nd Floor. RSVP to 212.592.2228 or dcrit AT sva.edu.

November 10
Martin Beck, "Selected for their Implications"
Conceptual artist Martin Beck will focus on methodological aspects of working with design history from an artistic perspective, including his reconstruction of George Nelson's modular Struc-Tube system. He has exhibited work around the world, including Graz, London and New York City, and is the author of About the Relative Size of Things in the Universe (Four Corners Books, 2007).

November 17
Jake Barton, "Post-Attention Span Audiences and Designing for Them"
Jake Barton is founder and principal of Local Projects, an award-winning media design firm for museums and public spaces. Jake is recognized as a leader in the field of interaction design for physical spaces, and in the creation of collaborative storytelling projects where participants generate content, including the 9/11 Memorial Museum, Storycorps and the Official NYC Information Center.

December 1
Katie Salen, "Everyone Knows Something: Design of Participation"
Writer and educator Katie Salen will discuss how modern communication and collaboration tools can lead to collective authorship, discovery and invention. She is a professor in the Design and Technology Program at Parsons The New School for Design, director of the Center for Transformative Media at The New School, executive director of the Institute of Play and co-editor of The International Journal of Learning and Media (MIT Press).

December 8
Peter Hall, "Writing Design History: Problems and Provocations"
Peter Hall, design critic, and senior lecturer in design at the University of Texas at Austin, will discuss the relationship between writing design criticism and writing design history. He has been a contributing writer for Metropolis magazine since 2000 and has written for publications including Print, I.D. Magazine, The New York Times, and The Guardian. He wrote and co-edited the books Tibor Kalman: Perverse Optimist, Sagmeister: Made You Look, and Pause: 59 Minutes of Motion Graphics.

December 15
Antenna Design, "Design for Activation"
Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger are co-founders and partners at Antenna Design New York Inc. Together they will speak about their belief in design's power to activate people, both physically and intellectually, and to stimulate social interaction. For Antenna Design, "people-centered" design means recognizing people as complex beings with the potential to learn and grow, to be responsible, creative and reflective.