A Refractive (Re)view

The MA GMD course has contributed to a new publication entitled One and many mirrors: perspectives on graphic design education, published by Occasional Papers, 2020. The essay entitled ‘A Refractive…

The MA GMD course has contributed to a new publication entitled One and many mirrors: perspectives on graphic design education, published by Occasional Papers, 2020. The essay entitled ‘A Refractive (Re)view’ asks: what can it mean to approach graphic design education as a piece of design today? Members of the course team, current participants and graduates came together to think through the contexts, conditions and concerns that emerge in and through a course design, speaking to and from distinct standpoints, histories and ambitions.

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One and many mirrors: perspectives on graphic design education is an ambitious book bringing together a wide international selection of new and recent writing by educators and practitioners who question the rules and hierarchies of graphic design education today. It holds a vivid mirror up to the ways in which graphic design is imagined, taught, received and reproduced.

Edited by Brad Haylock and Luke Wood, the publication features contributions by Paul Bailey, Stuart Bertolotti-Bailey, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, Richard Buchanan, Vincent Chan, Tony Credland, Europa, Katie Evans, Matthew Galloway, Rob Giampietro, Corin Gisel, Ricardo Gonçalves, Lisa Grocott, Brad Haylock, Constanze Hein, Richard Hollis, Na Kim, James Langdon, Lu Liang, Ellen Lupton, Gabriela Matuszyk, Fraser Muggeridge, Paul Mylecharane, Nina Paim, Megan Patty, Radim Peško, Joe Potts, Bryony Quinn, Carlos Romo‑Melgar, Naomi Strinati, Jon Sueda, Lucille Tenazas, Teal Triggs, Michael Twyman, Jonty Valentine, Laurene Vaughan, Noel Waite, Luke Wood, Jia Xiao, Bonne Zabolotney and Roxy Zeiher.

Announcements

Making ignorance great again!

Current MA GMD participant Rita Correia Buiça shares a few words on her recent completion of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps programme, established by Nobel Laureate and former US Vice President Al Gore.…

Current MA GMD participant Rita Correia Buiça shares a few words on her recent completion of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps programme, established by Nobel Laureate and former US Vice President Al Gore.

‘In the light of my ongoing MA research about the interrelationship between climate change, climate misinformation and denial, I had the opportunity to train to become a climate leader with the mentorship of Al Gore, other experts in the field and peers from all corners of the world. The Climate Reality Leadership Corps training was an experience that allowed me to explore my role as a graphic designer and researcher in a different environment.

Everyone in training was passionate about solving the climate crisis. The training itself went beyond facts and numbers, I have learned ways to shape public opinion and inspiring communities to act. As a graphic designer, sitting at the table with people from different cultural and professional backgrounds, it has inspired me to believe that graphic design can contribute to ways in which this issue can be communicated and ultimately solved.’

Events

Data Justice and COVID-19: Global Perspectives

MA GMD tutor Carlos Romo-Melgar has collaborated with John Philip Sage in the design of the book Data Justice and COVID-19: Global Perspectives edited by Linnet Taylor, Aaron Martin, Gargi Sharma and Shazade Jameson, and…

MA GMD tutor Carlos Romo-Melgar has collaborated with John Philip Sage in the design of the book Data Justice and COVID-19: Global Perspectives edited by Linnet Taylor, Aaron Martin, Gargi Sharma and Shazade Jameson, and published by Meatspace Press.

This book serves as a guide to the landscape of technologies deployed by individual countries as a response to the pandemic. The essays interrogate the political, legal, and regulatory structures that determine how these technologies are applied in different contexts. In doing so, the book exposes the workings of state technological power to critical assessment and contestation. The design of the publication offers visual entry points to the meaning of the word surveillance, leading to the development of a series of graphic signifiers presented across the book’s layout and image-making: cartographic, monitoring, documental and tracking visual languages, intertwining in over-imposed layers.

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Events

There are also people living here

There are also people living here, a visual essay by current MA GMD participant Rachel Jung, has recently been screened as one of 21 films selected for The Design Film Festival by Sumitra…

There are also people living here, a visual essay by current MA GMD participant Rachel Jung, has recently been screened as one of 21 films selected for The Design Film Festival by Sumitra Upham, Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, and Matali Crasset.

The essay observes North Korean society through its food culture, visualizing actions of making, eating, and quickly wrapping up a North Korean street food named ‘fried tofu rice’ – often sold in Jangmadangs (illegal markets) – as a means to open up dialogue on the social conditions of North Korea.

The Design Film Festival is part of a collaborative programme between HEAD-Genève, Parsons The New School and Kingston School of Art, led by Alexandra Midal, Ulrich Lehmann and Jana Scholze.

View the essay

Events

Independent publishing of the 90’s

MA GMD tutor, Tony Credland, as one half of the Cactus Network, will be showing as part of an exhibition of “Independent publishing of the 90’s” at the A-Z…

MA GMD tutor, Tony Credland, as one half of the Cactus Network, will be showing as part of an exhibition of “Independent publishing of the 90’s” at the A-Z gallery in Berlin run by Anja Lutz alongside other publications; Shift Magazine (Berlin), SKART (Belgrade), Qui Resist (Paris), La Mas Bella (Madrid), Mutabor (Hamburg), & Feeding Squirrels to the Nuts (London). The exhibition with workshops is planned for the end of November but may move due to Covid-19.

Events

Geo—Design

MA GMD tutor Tamar Shafrir is the editor of the recently launched GEO—DESIGN online archive, a collection of 44 projects developed by alumni of the Design Academy Eindhoven under…

MA GMD tutor Tamar Shafrir is the editor of the recently launched GEO—DESIGN online archive, a collection of 44 projects developed by alumni of the Design Academy Eindhoven under the GEO—DESIGN exhibition platform, concept by Joseph Grima and curated by Martina Muzi. The archive is made available to a wide audience online as a resource on issues of design, circulation, supply, mediation, and politics in global networks. Each project is displayed in an easily accessible format as a research repository, including references, collected images, process documentation, and final works. The intention is to go beyond traditional notions of authorship and to think about how designers can collectively develop models of research and creative intervention into issues of common concern.

Events

Stepping out of doors

This month we welcomed our new and returning participants, who are very pleased to meet with and work alongside to explore the potentialities of distributed practices throughout this…

This month we welcomed our new and returning participants, who are very pleased to meet with and work alongside to explore the potentialities of distributed practices throughout this period.

As our new participants settle into the term, we invite you to step out into the practices-in-progress of the continuing group by way of Are.na channels, originally established for a critical forum exchange earlier in the year.

‘Forum’: a meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged: from Latin, literally ‘what is out of doors’, originally denoting an enclosure surrounding a house.

S tep out of doors

Events

MA GMD Open (online) Studio

We invite you to join us for a series of OPEN (ONLINE) STUDIO sessions; an opportunity to meet with the course team and participants to learn about the philosophy…

We invite you to join us for a series of OPEN (ONLINE) STUDIO sessions; an opportunity to meet with the course team and participants to learn about the philosophy and intentions of the course.

Current participants will share insights from their research practices and lead a discussion on the opportunities that have encountered throughout the course.

Bookings

Announcements

Clive Baillie Scholarship

The Clive Baillie Scholarship, worth £5,000, is now welcoming applications. Full details of the application and selection process are available here. Shauna Wilkinson, the recipient of the scholarship…

The Clive Baillie Scholarship, worth £5,000, is now welcoming applications. Full details of the application and selection process are available here.

Shauna Wilkinson, the recipient of the scholarship this year, shares insights to her experience and her current research:

I was fortunate enough to receive the Clive Baillie Scholarship for the year 2019/20, which has made an incredible difference to both my research and design practice as a practitioner on the MA Graphic Media Design course. My current research explores the idiosyncrasies of Gravesend’s history (my hometown). I am interested in investigating this through the lens of spatial-cultural discourse and place-identity theory, in order to examine the concept of home through tangible design?

IMAGE: RESEARCH ARCHIVE, SHAUNA WILKINSON

Announcements

Welcoming common-interest

We are delighted to welcome common-interest to the ALWFAV team. Corinne Gisel and Nina Pain will join as advisors for volume 4, working with the MA GMD participants and…

We are delighted to welcome common-interest to the ALWFAV team. Corinne Gisel and Nina Pain will join as advisors for volume 4, working with the MA GMD participants and guests towards publication in December 2020.

common-interest is a non-profit design research practice, operating at the intersection of knowledge production, exchange, and mediation. They use design as both a lens to critically look at the world, a tool to bring people together, and as a means to make socially relevant insights public. For them, design research is an activist tool for issue advocacy, collectivity building, and commoning knowledge.

As we progress with plans for the next volume, we invite you to read previous volumes online: Volume 1 / Volume 2 / Volume 3

Whilst we navigate our response to the pandemic, the ALWFAV team continue to accept orders for Volume 3 to be dispatched on our return to LCC in the coming months. Please contact p.bailey@lcc.arts.ac.uk

Otherwise, there is limited stock is available at MagCulture, who also kindly recently featured the publication, announcing:

A really impressive third issue from the MA Graphic Media Design course; this is what independent magazine-making is all about.

TOP IMAGE: FLOWERS FOR IMMIGRATION BY LIZANIA CRUZ AND MONSTERA DELICIOSA BY MANUELA EICHNER, AS SHOWN IN THE DEPARTMENT OF NON-BINARIES, CURATED BY COMMON-INTEREST (NINA PAIM AND CORINNE GISEL WITH NAZ NADDAF) AND PART OF MINISTRY OF GRAPHIC DESIGN: FIKRA GRAPHIC DESIGN BIENNIAL, 2018. PHOTO: PREM KRISHNAMURTHY