We just posted an interview with Matt and Sam of The Artist’s Guide on Hear, Hear.

A quote from Core77’s excellent interview with Rob Walker,

Of course, this is from me as an outsider, but the thing I hear from the design world is “we are artists who solve problems.” But the problem with that is the discussion doesn’t seem to start with asking, “What are the five biggest problems in the world?” It seems to start someplace else. And wherever it starts is what leads to 200 choices for toothbrushes.

I was listening to Debbie Millman’s interview with Stefan Sagmeister lately, and at one point she pointed out that design is art, in response to Sagmeister’s ‘art fucks design and vice versa’. Blame it on Duchamp, but I suppose everything is art these days. Still, as a designer and as someone who fancies to be an artist, I see a big difference between the two discipline. Design has a very clear purpose, or function, where as art is just art for its own sake. Someone said it better (and I don’t remember who it was): an artist can make a square wheel.

I don’t like the word art. It’s got such dirty connotations these days - because of money and posers, perhaps? ‘Art’ is like the word ’solution’ in corporate world, empty and meaningless.

Mr. Walker keeps a column, Consumed, in the New York Times Magazine, and he has a blog called Murketing. He writes about his observations on consumer culture and behavior. He’s very good.

Ms. Millman has a podcast called Design Matters, where she interviews people from Hoefler & Frere-Jones to Barbara Kruger (which is live today, but I’m having trouble getting it to work on my MacBook). She needs help with her recording, but the interviews are great. She is knowledgable about what she is saying, asks the right questions, and speaks more eloquently than I ever will. She also has a blog.