Lectures in 2012 | Shapeshifters focuses on how graphic designers visualise/transform information so that it becomes almost intuitively comprehensible. Six lecturers reflect from their own vision and know-how on interactive design, editorial/news design, data visualisation, exhibition design, cartography and wayfinding systems.
8 February: Brendan Dawes and Mark Porter
7 March: Andrew Vande Moere and Morag Myerscough
27 April: Joost Grootens + Tim Fendley
Brendan Dawes (UK) | 8 February 2012
Brendan Dawes is a MoMA exhibited artist, designer, author, maker, self confessed generalist and the founder of Beep Industries.
Brendan explores the interplay of people, code, design and art through the products released through Beep Industries and on brendandawes.com, a personal space where he publishes random thoughts, toys and projects created from an eclectic mix of digital and analog objects.
In 2009 he was listed among the top twenty web designers in the world by .Net magazine and was featured in the “Design Icon” series in Computer Arts. In 2008 his Cinema Redux project was acquired by MoMA in New York for the permanent collection. In 2011 his Doodlebuzz news interface was featured in the Talk to Me exhibition at MoMA in New York. Doodlebuzz won a D&AD in 2009 for interface design. In 2010 he released The Accidental News Explorer – an iPhone app for serendipitous news discovery that was featured as “new and notable” in the US app store and was featured amongst the eighty projects in the Taschen book Mobile Case Studies published in 2011.
Mark Porter (UK) | 8 February 2012
Mark Porter designs magazines, newspapers, books, websites and apps for content worth reading. He was born in Scotland and studied modern languages at Oxford University. Initially self-taught, he then learnt from some of London and New York’s best designers. After several successful years in magazines, he joined The Guardian (London) in 1995, and in 2005 he masterminded the seminal Guardian relaunch which has become a benchmark of contemporary newspaper design. He then oversaw the redesign of the Guardian’s website and mobile offering before leaving to set up his own studio, Mark Porter Associates. He has designed a range of award-winning magazines, newspapers and websites including, Wired (UK), Colors (Italy), Internazionale (Italy), Público (Portugal), Courrier Interntional (France), NZZ am Sonntag (Switzerland), Het Fianancieele Dagblad (Netherlands) and Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden).
Andrew Vande Moere (B) | 7 March 2012
Andrew Vande Moere is an Associate Professor at the Department of Architecture, Urbanism and Planning of the University of Leuven. He teaches about the symbiosis of media and space, exemplified by topics such as architectural computing, urban informatics, social visualization, interaction design and media architecture. Andrew acquired his PhD degree at the ETH-Zurich, Switzerland, after which he became a lecturer in Design Computing at The University of Sydney, Australia. Since 2004, Andrew maintains the weblog “Information Aesthetics”, at which he collects compelling representations of data that are able to inform as well as engage the public at large. He is particularly interested in combining information visualization with creative design, in order to convey useful insight as well as to provoke personal reflection or behavioral persuasion. In his academic research, he explores how the communication of information can be pushed into physical reality without the use of electronic displays, by experimenting with small, wearable visualizations integrated in clothing, or large-scale infographics that are attached to architectural facades.
Morag Myercough (UK) | 7 March 2012
Morag Myerscough has produced an eclectic – and sometimes eccentric – body of work that is frequently unclassifiable but always offers a high level of engagement. She combines formal graphic design methodologies (typography, image making, colour theory) with highly individualist craft skills.” Extract: Adrian Shaughnessy – Book: Supergraphics – Transforming Space: Unit 02 – Tony Brook and Adrian Shaughnessy
Over the years Morag has concentrated on working way beyond the restrictions of 2-D and creates and curates many different types of work including a train as a café, numerous exhibitions, interpreting buildings plus running her own gallery and shop ‘her house’. Currently designing the permanent exhibition which will be in the New Design Museum, London. Collaboratively working with Cartlidge Levene on the wayfinding for the new extension at the Tate Modern, architects Herzog and De Meuron. Working on several social design projects, in hospitals and youth centres. Recently completed, working in a team with Zynga in San Francisco, on the spatial design of their new headquarters. Been out on the street with a public art installation for the Experimenta Expo in Lisbon working with supergroup collaborator Luke Morgan. Plus much more...
Myerscough believes that wayfinding is not purely about a series of signs but as much about bringing out the narrative in the built environment, enhancing the physical experience, it is very important how people feel when they move through a space, if they can move easily almost unconsciously and if you can make them smile and feel happy that is one of the best outcomes.
Morag studied at St Martin’s and the Royal College of Art. Starting Studio Myerscough in 1993.
Joost Grootens (NL) | 27 April 2012
Joost Grootens studied architectural design at Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. As a graphic designer he is self-taught. His studio designs books in the fields of architecture, urban space and art, specializing on atlases, designing both the maps and the books themselves.
Among his clients are 010 Publishers, Nai Publishers, Lars Müller Publishers, Phaidon Press, Vanabbe Museum and Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum.
Grootens has won numerous prizes for his designs.
Among them the ‘Goldene Letter’ and two Gold Medals in the Best Book Design from all over the World competition in Leipzig. In 2009 he was awarded the Netherlands’ most prestigious design award, the Rotterdam Design Prize. A monograph about his work titled ‘I swear I use no art at all’ was published by 010 Publishers in 2010.
Grootens is programme leader of the research programme Information Design at Design Academy Eindhoven’s Master course. He has also lectured and conducted workshops at various institutions in Asia, Europe and North America. Joost Grootens is a member of AGI (Alliance Graphique Internationale).
Tim Fendley (UK) | 27 April 2012
Tim Fendley founded Applied to push the boundaries of information design. A central focus is making cities more understandable by providing useful information, evidenced by projects in London, Glasgow, Leeds, Brighton, New York and Vancouver. Tim’s work draws on his cultural and commercial experience in environmental, editorial, identity and interactive design for clients such as Bosch, Ferrari, Vancouver Translink, Gilbert & George, Orange and Lexus. Tim was the lead designer of the Bristol Legible City initiative.
He has a passion for cities and mapping and a methodology that encompasses diagnostic testing in real situations mixed with product design prototyping techniques. Tim’s recent interest has been to make sense of London, by initiating and leading the design of Legible London, a capital-wide pedestrian wayfinding scheme. When it is complete, it will be the most extensive of its kind in the world.
