Thinkdo Studio and Sennep visit Camberwell

Two friends of the FdA – Tara Hanrahan from Thinkdo Studio & Matt Rice from Sennep will be talking at the Wilson Road, Lecture Hall, Camberwell College of Arts on Wednesday 23rd November starting at 11am. The talk is part of a series of lectures from practitioners invited by staff at Camberwell. Tara and Matt were invited by FdA Course Leader, Derek Yates – a description of the talk is below.

'Designing to inspire, educate and provoke change – A talk on how communication and interaction can be put to good use. All design jobs are to some extent social, but there are some that have the opportunity to change how people think and act in relation to helping with, or raising awareness of, social issues. Communication designer Tara Hanrahan (of think/do and formerly of thomas.matthews) and interactive designer Matt Rice (of Sennep) will discuss a range of their work; from projects that generate simple positive actions, to far-reaching campaigns that influence policy. We aim to show that this needn't be an overly worthy or style vacant area of design, but an exciting space to explore how the right mix of graphics, materials, technology, interaction and play, can engage and persuade.'

Critical Tension

Second year FdA Design/ Illustration students presented their ‘Hashtag Manifestos’ last week at the ‘Critical Tensions’ conference at the St Bride Library. Course Leader, Derek Yates, introduced the project as an example of learning that redefines conventional definitions of vocational education and work based learning. Popular perception draws a distinction between vocational and academic learning, between the practitioner and the educator, between industry and education. This view says that the sort of research that enables innovation and new ways of thinking is distinct from activity that improves employability. The term ‘vocational’ is thought to imply a short-term fix, associated with passive thinkers and technicians only able to work under instruction. A more contemporary approach sees creative thinking, innovation and employability as intrinsically linked. According to Sir George Cox, former Chair of the Design Council, ‘Creativity – the base for innovation – has never been more important. For business, it holds the key not just to success, but to survival.’

At the conference Derek called for a re-evaluation of the relationship between creative education and the employers it serves in order to instigate research that has resonance outside the academic environment. Demonstrating how projects like this investigate the potential of partnerships with the creative industries that encourage an exchange of ideas that has genuine benefits for both parties.

The conference is featured on Eye Magazine blog and more photographs of the event can be found here.

# Manifesto: Final Presentation

Final draft presentations of the books took place on the 26th October – with Russell Holmes meticulously checking PDFs and black and white mock ups. Once more it was pleasing to see just how far ideas had travelled since the last meeting and it was very clear that the input of Russell and Viv had given a genuine rigour to the students ideas. The number of technical problems the students had overcome was also noted and almost without exception they were now able to create print ready artwork for a 28 page book – understanding limitations of resolution, colour, binding and bleed. Students were sent away to make corrections and the books were uploaded to the UbyU website ready for production on Friday 28th October. They should be delivered to Camberwell on the 9th November, just in time to be exhibited at the Tenth Annual St Bride Conference.

# Manifesto Stage 02 Presentation

A week later on the 21st October, one of Russell’s partners at Ico, Viv Bhatia visited Camberwell to chair meetings to review the next stage in the development of the Hashtag Manifestos. Students presented 6 finished spreads and a black & white mock up and Viv took them through how to develop these through to a final book.

# Manifesto: Stage 01 Presentation

Russell Holmes, one of the partners at ICO Design, came into to Camberwell on the 14^th October to look at initial ideas for the Hashtag Manifestos. Students presented visuals for two spreads and talked through their ideas with supporting material. The range of interpretation was extremely impressive and subjects covered included a future Global Economic Republic, religious cults, anti social behaviour brought on by computer gaming, frameworks for moral choices and the dynamics of sexual relations amongst others.

ICO/ UbyU – # Manifesto

On the 4th of October the second year FdA students started a project organized in partnership with ICO Design. This project requires them to work in pairs to design a manifesto. The starting point for these manifestos will be a tweet related to one of the following hashtags: #give; #riot; #poverty; #profit; #wealth; #community; # hedonism; #play; #share; #vote; #brand; #exploit. Twitter condenses messages to bite-sized sentences that communicate beyond their word limit and are open to a myriad of interpretation. One of the aims of the project is that students visually interpret the deeper meaning of a ‘tip of the iceberg tweet’ in order to produce a book that addresses the wider issues that the tweet alludes to. These books will be printed by online bespoke publishers, UbyU and will be exhibited at ‘Critical Tensions’, the 10th Annual St Bride Library conference.

Viv from Ico kicked off the project with a slidetalk about Ico’s work and provided loads of sources of inspiration – including punk fanzines and the work of David Pearson and El Lissitsky. Working with Derek Yates, Viv then led a series of workshops that enabled the students to start to formulate their ideas and gain a deeper understanding of what the project would involve.

Visit to Mother

Recently, Derek Yates, Course Leader for the FdA in Graphic Design visited the creative agency, Mother, who are based in the Biscuit Building on Redchurch Street. He met with Sam Payne to plan the content of a talk that Sam had agreed to do at Camberwell. Before the meeting, Sam, gave Derek a guided tour of the space that Mother inhabit. Every aspect of this space has been considered to enable dynamic, flexible relationships between the people that work there. A huge concrete table circulates the main space and staff can spread out, hold informal meetings or hide away in purpose built lounge areas if they need some privacy. Teams are made up of people with an equal investment in every part of every project and each member is never pigeon holed into a restrictively defined role. There are many lessons for contemporary education in this approach – not least in the way they avoid entrenched division between departments and the alienation of an overly rigid hierarchy. When they sat down, Sam took Derek through Mother’s strategy for research that enables communication with appropriately specific cultural reference. This includes utilizing a world-wide team of film makers to produce mini documentaries that record the lives of people at the forefront of evolving contemporary vernacular cultures. The depth with which people like Sam develop this reference provides genuine understanding and the process was particularly interesting for Derek as he continues to develop new approaches to contextual research at Camberwell. Sam Payne will be about his role at Mother in the Wilson Road Lecture Hall at Camberwell on the 19th of October at 9.30am.