The London Residential Diary

Last week saw the BA(Hons) Design & Visual Arts: Graphic Design students take a jam-packed trip to our bustling capital city of London. Level 5 and level 6 students attended with sketchbooks underarm and sunglasses on as we soaked up the spring sunshine.

Straight off the train on Wednesday afternoon, students took a swift tube journey down to the Victoria & Albert Museum from Euston. Many of the students had never visited this magnificent museum before. I hoped the spaces and artifacts would encourage them in the value of broad ranging research sources, and encourage their enquiry in research being sourced beyond Google! From the V&A, we went to the Institute of Contemporary Arts on The Mall. Students soon recognised the iconic road from the Royal Wedding last year. It was valuable for them to draw a connection between the hype of such an internationally followed event, right next to one of the country's finest arts institutions, full of culture and inspiration. We saw three bodies of work at the ICA: In Numbers: Serial Publications by Artists Since 1955, Lis Rhodes: Dissonance and Disturbance and The Themersons & Gaberbocchus Press. The artist publications were extremely inspiring to the Graphic Design students as they demonstrated such a high level of quality, craft and conceptual strength. I believe that seeing such work encourages students to raise the bar in terms of what they aspire to in their own work, and challenges them to consider their potential.

Thursday demanded an 8.30am start from Kings Cross, to travel for 90 minutes to Hackney Wick. We visited a good friend and former tutor of mine from London College of Communication, Sheena Calvert, who has a wonderful studio in the area full of letterpress trays and a well-oiled Vandercook press. A former Saint Martins student, Oliver, assisted Sheena on the day. Meeting Oliver was valuable to the students as they met a younger face, similar to their own, who had an infectious passion for typography. I wanted the students to visit Sheena to help them to understand a little of the history of the discipline of graphic design and of printing. To tangibly hold small pieces of lead and print with them is wonderful in teaching students the value and the importance of the letterform in design. Sheena said, "We could select this type on a computer keyboard in 30 seconds, but that would be boring, right?" Students really enjoyed the experience and each came away with a print that they were so proud of.

The group was split into three to enable Sheena to work with them individually. Whilst other groups were printing, students took a walk along the Green Way, just behind Sheena's studio, which encircles the Olympic Park. On Friday, level 5 students visited The Times for a tour from Design Editor, Jon Hill, as they're currently working on an Olympics brief with him. To see the Olympic park right before their eyes was a hugely valuable experience to the students working on this project in particular. For students of all levels I think it encouraged a very real engagement with the importance of the Olympics this year, both for London and the UK. While many students feel unable able to take part due to the constraints of money and the ticket booking system, this experience enabled a part of the Olympics to be accessible to them which was wonderful. 

By 1pm, all students had completed their prints and we said a huge thankyou to Oliver, Sheena, and her little printer's dog, Bam Bam. One reason for taking students out so far from central London was to show them an alternative side to the capital in the sense that it is full of creative people doing interesting things. These people reside both inside the large, well-known, studios but also outside of the hustle and bustle, tucked away in smaller studios creating wonderful work. My aim was to broaden student perceptions of working in London, and to raise their aspirations in terms of the options and accessibility of employment in the Capital.

Later on Thursday, we visited the Design Museum to see both the Terence Conran and Designs of the Year exhibitions. Both exhibitions provided students with a huge range of inspirational work and rich reference sources. Visiting the Design Museum is always a pleasure not only due to the quality of the exhibits, but the craft of the curation and design also. Students took note of the studio who had designed the graphics for the Design of the Year exhibition, APFEL, and we discussed the importance of their role in the branding and visual curatorial consistency of the show overall. Many of the students had never considered this option as one of the roles of a graphic designer. Again, the experience broadened their horizons. 

Later, we walked along the Thames to the Tate Modern were students wrapped up their day with further contemporary art references. Beyond the Tate's permanent collection, the architectural magnitude of the turbine hall was so inspiring to students.

Our Friday itinerary included several studio visits. Our first stop was to be at the new publishers, Visual Editions, but unfortunately they had no option but to cancel at the last minute. This was a real shame, but I think it taught the students a rather valuable lesson. The innovative nature of the way that VE are shaking up the perception of book publishing at the moment has made them a key reference in my teaching over the past year. Their books are invigoratingly designed, challengingly produced, and outstandingly crafted. They are an inspirational source of reference to students on many levels. One of the founders of VE, Anna Gerber, and I are friends and I therefore felt it would be a lovely link for the students to meet the very human, normal, humble face behind such innovation in publishing. The fact that Anna had to cancel was a great shame, but their reason was that the visit was physically not possible against the deadline for the publication of their new book. Anna wrote in a blog post later that day, "Okay, so this week we went beyond falling off the production cliff and we just kept falling." It was valuable for students to empathise with the very real pressures of the tasks that VE manage on a daily basis and though a disappointment, I hope they will learn from it as they head into their futures.

On Friday afternoon, we were booked in for a tour of The Times in Wapping. Jon Hill visited the College several weeks ago to set the Olympics brief to level 5 Graphic Design students, and to also give a lecture to the whole course. It was extremely valuable for the students to visit Jon's working environment, having already met him on home turf in Stockport. Many of the students said they had never been in an office before, and it has opened their eyes to their options for the future. In teaching, we often underestimate the value or need for these early experiences for students. Jon took students around all of the floors of the Times at the News International head quarters, explaining the roles and day-to-day experience of each team. He also gave them a sneak-peak of the 'design hub' for all Olympics-related content which requires a whole team of dedicated people to plan spreads, content, and info graphics in advance of hundreds of events and potential news-worthy stories. The course's collaboration with Jon Hill will be a hugely valuable experience for students by then end of the project.

From The Times, we traveled along the river on the District Line to Temple station to visit Somerset House. Now in its third year, Pick Me Up, a contemporary graphic arts and illustration fair, opened the week of our visit. The work simply blew students away. There were many talented graphic arts and illustration practitioners exhibiting at the fair. The atmosphere was alive with optimism and a hope in the future of the discipline. It was wonderful for students to experience this, and again, see work of such inspirational quality and craft. Back to Stockport on the train on Friday evening, all students (and staff) were exhausted but I feel we experienced many sides to London that students had not necessarily engaged with previously. I hope the trip made out Capital feel accessible to students, and that they will be driven to visit again, and again as they develop their working practice over the coming years.