In case you haven't picked up Surface's eleventh annual avant guardian issue (also known as #74, as the lifestyle magazine long ago evolved beyond dates), we wanted to call your attention to the feature on the design criticism MFA program now in its inaugural year at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Surface singles out D-Crit for an avant guardian award in education, noting that the program's students "are poised to raise the bar on an emerging discipline, creating a broader audience for all things design." (You'll have to take our word for it or head to the newsstand, since Surface hasn't updated its website in over a year.)

Why D-Crit? "We need to raise the quality of writing in design magazines, but also in the mass media, for [design] to be talked about in an intelligent way," program chairperson Alice Twemlow told writer Dan Rubinstein. As for how design might reach critical mass, mediawise, MoMA curator and D-Crit faculty member Paola Antonelli relayed her own long-held frustration: "It's outrageous that nearly all major U.S. publications have a critic for just about everything—art, theater, television—except design!" Antonelli said. "The world doesn't understand design because all too often designers can't express themselves [in words]."

UPDATE: Dan Rubinstein has just informed us that the full text of his Surface article on D-Crit is available on his blog. Just click here. Thanks, Dan!