by Ian West | Apr 20, 2012 | Working designer
A first taste of the real world of work can be a a bit of a reality check for the aspiring creative. One of my hobbies throughout college, and one that had also supplemented my student income, was music. I had played around local folk clubs, both solo and in various...
by Ian West | Apr 9, 2012 | Design education
In the summer of 1966 I heard that a silkscreen printer who specialised in producing the ‘flags’ that estate agents place outside houses for sale, had suffered a major fire. Racks full of stencils repeatedly washed with white spirit, drums of solvent based inks and...
by Ian West | Apr 9, 2012 | Uncategorized
Two facets of the graphics course had captured my imagination: the first was printmaking, and the second was typography. Printmaking had a hybrid character, both fine art and commercial graphics influences ran through it. In the sixties, Warhol, Lichtenstein and many...
by Ian West | Apr 8, 2012 | Design education
Design education – the delights and tribulations of typography A key subject in the curriculum, and one that was to become particularly important to me, was typography. In the days before computers and desktop publishing, all text had to be set in type – either...
by Ian West | Mar 27, 2012 | Design education
In design, as in all education, students are often more aware of cultural shift than are their tutors – even if they can’t at first articulate them. As the course progressed we began to recognise some of the tensions in the world of design. The college was...
