"Design, he argued, was about to lose something essential. Not a tool. Not a technique. Something more fundamental: the capacity to distinguish good work from bad work with reasons that transcend personal preference. Vignelli called for criticism. Not cruelty. Not gatekeeping. Criticism as rigorous evaluation: the ability to say this works because... and this fails because... in ways others could follow, test, and debate."
"His claim was not that standards should be stricter, but that without criticism, standards cannot exist at all. And without standards, a field cannot accumulate knowledge. It can only produce work. That warning was ignored - not because it was wrong, but because the conditions required to process it were already dissolving."
Design faced a loss of a fundamental capacity: the ability to justify why some work succeeds and other work fails beyond personal preference. Rigorous criticism functions as reproducible evaluation, enabling statements like "this works because..." and "this fails because..." in ways others can follow, test, and debate. Without such criticism, standards cannot form and the field cannot accumulate knowledge; it can only continue producing work. Calls for rigorous criticism were ignored because the cultural and professional conditions required to sustain critical evaluation were already dissolving in the early 1980s.
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