A personal update

April is drawing to an end and nothing has changed in regards to this website. I promised (myself) to relaunch this month but let´s keep realistic: It´s not going to happen. It is however, along with one or two other commitments, now my first priority to get it done. Of course there are reasons for the delay, and contrary to what some might think when they know that I'm currently on a "year out", it´s not laziness, party and holiday. Since the start of the academic year I have worked full-time in two creative companies with international reputation and part-time in another. I have pursued freelance work for big and small clients and took part in design competitions with success. Since the start of 2010 I have wrapped up seven projects and successfully taught myself many of the things I always wanted to learn but university failed to address. I realised my plan to run my own "course" with my own "modules" and I can say it paid off. And I'm not finished yet.



When in the second year of my degree course at UWE my disappointment with the quality of teaching reached a peak, I decided to take up the opportunity to study a semester in Switzerland. This reinforced my impression that Graphic Design at UWE just isn't for me and I pulled the emergency break which led to the experience I'm having now. It was the right decision. At the point when I walked into the admin office and told them that I was taking time-out, everything was open. I didn't know whether I could sustain myself, what I would do with my time, whether I would change my mind and if I would return next year or not. The reaction from UWE was mainly shrugging shoulders and the deletion of my e-mail account. Formally for the university I became invisible since I wasn't a paying customer anymore.



Through the experience I've had since that day, the work I've done and the goals I've accomplished, I've come to realise that my career plans don't align with the teaching at the Graphic Design course at UWE. I'm pursuing a career in the creative industry, as a designer, consultant or whatever it may be. A career primarily concerned with solving problems creatively and visually for clients, users and audiences. I'm not an artist and I'm not the centre of my own work. However, most projects I was asked to undertake at UWE asked me to either express my personal opinion, to graphically expose intimate details of my personality/life, or to create work better described as conceptual art. A critical message seemed more important than the professional execution or aesthetic quality of the work. Judging it by using the weight of the file containing the development work as an indication for the mark instead of actually looking through it wasn't the only assessment flaw. Work seemed to be judged neither by form nor function but by the level of personal engagement and sacrifice. A usability-driven analytical approach to design was belittled in favour of a preferably physically painful and uncomfortable information gathering process like sitting in a space for 5 hours or performances subject to public ridicule. The result were clichés. The role of the designer as author, artist and social commentator was stressed particularly after some key positions in the staff hierarchy had changed. The line "Emphasis is placed on content gathering and authorship" was added to the official course description. This isn't what I signed up for.



Admittedly I've been moaning and complaining a lot. I've had many a rant about the course and it wasn't always fair or appropriate. My concern wasn't the 107 typos in 12 poorly photocopied briefs, it was everything that this entailed: the assumption that personal expression is more important than usability. After I have gained some distance now, I can reflect on it differently. I suppose my conclusion is: Each to their own. Some graphic designers are artists. For some the most important aspect of graphic design is political agitation and commentating on society. Few make a living through that, others are happy with a day job and "do graphic design" on the side. And then there´s another side of graphic design which is industry, client and consumer focussed and usability driven. A side where form follows function and aesthetics are an element of usability engineering. I suppose most good designers find a healthy balance of the two. But in order to find this balance, one needs to learn and experience both of them.



After going to Switzerland and studying modules in Digital Media, Scientific Visualisation and Information Design, subsequently working in Editorial Design with a prestigious magazine at one of the largest publishing houses in Germany, experiencing User Centred Design practice at an award-winning multi-disciplinary Information Design studio, pursuing freelance work for clients ranging from startups to multi-national corporations and now working in a Social Media ad agency, I'm much more aware of where I'm positioning myself in the creative industry. I regard this experience as part of the learning that contributes to my degree. This means—you guessed it—I didn't quit. Of course I'm continuing to study. I have one more year to go and I aim to follow the path I'm on now. I focus on the aspect of graphic design that makes sense to me. I don't know what kind of projects I'm going to do in the third year. Maybe they'll have an element of authorship and conceptual art. Maybe to some extent they'll reflect a personal aspect. One thing is for sure: My learning approach is going to be industry-focussed, collaborative, multi-disciplinary and usability-driven.



I will not graduate from UWE Bristol, but from the University College Falmouth in 2011.