Over the weekend I submitted my thesis to the Media Studies department at The New School.  Barring any unforeseen circumstances, all that’s left for me to do is to graduate in two weeks.

The past five months’ worth of work have been difficult and challenging, but I’m pleased with the outcome and will be interested to see what comes of this work next.

If you are interested, the entire document (it’s over 140 pages all told, so be forewarned) is available for download.  I hope it’s as interesting for you to read as it was rewarding for me to write.

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From Stovetop to Screen: A Cultural History of Food Television

There’s a debate raging between the print world and the blogosphere over whether or not design-oriented blogs are contributing any real value in terms of academic and/or “thoughtful” criticism and analysis of design. If you look at the Internet, writing about design seems as healthy as ever, but if you look to the world of print, editors are complaining as of late that writing that “passes muster” (that is, peer-reviewed and/or edited) is increasingly difficult to find. Just read the introduction to Looking Closer Five by Steven Heller for the perfect example–the entire section is three pages on how the Internet “may” become the next big thing in terms of design criticism… but that it isn’t there yet.

This site, then, which is still a work in progress, is my contribution to the debate.

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