Category: students and graduates

Visit from Mushashino Art University

MAU UoR group photo
MAU visitors and Reading hosts, from left Ms Aki Amitani, Professor Yoshiro Goto, Gerry Leonidas, Toshi Omagari, Professor Gerard Unger, Yui Yoshitomi, Julian Moncada, Mari Kitamura, Akiko Maeda, Yukiko Aoshima.

Marking  the University’s new connection with the Mushashino Art University of Tokyo, two staff members and four students visited the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication for an intensive week of typeface design. The group, led by Reading alumnus Professor Yoshiro Goto of the Visual Communication Design Department, used their time in Reading to conclude a collaborative project devised by Prof. Goto and Gerry Leonidas, and delve deeper into the Department’s research-informed approach to typographic practice. Their schedule combined dedicated sessions, as well as shared tutorials and seminars with current BA students. The group also took part in sessions of particular interest by Professors Michael Twyman and Gerard Unger. Assisting generously throughout the week were fellow alumni Julian Moncada and Toshi Omagari (also a MAU alumnus).

2013 Monotype Studentship goes to Slovenian student

This year’s Monotype Studentship, awarded to an incoming MA student through the generosity of Monotype Imaging Ltd, has been awarded to Slovenian student Teja Smrekar, who will study Typeface Design. Teja receieved her first degree in Fine Arts from the University of Maribor, where her dissertation topic was ‘The socially engaged poster’. Teja has developed an interest in typeface design and attended workshops run by Gerry Leonidas and Reading alumna Veronika Burian. In her professional practice she has designed poetry books, an identity for the Association of Slovenian Artists, and has exhibited her work at EDUZGRAF in Zagreb, Croatia.

Dan Rhatigan, Type Director at Monotype, said ‘We selected Teja because of her overall enthusiasm and particularly her research interests in the Cambodian Khmer script. It’s always our hope that the Monotype Studentship will encourage the student who benefits from the opportunity and enable them to contribute to the wider body of typographic knowledge.’

Paul Luna, Head of Department, said ‘The support of industry partners is vital to allowing students from all over the world to study at Reading, and we are very grateful to Monotype for this continuing generous contribution to design education.’

Photo of Teja Smrekar
Teja Smrekar

Vincent Ma winner 2013

Photo of Kate Goudsmit
Kate Goudsmit, Vincent Ma winner 2013

Kate Goudsmit, who as a Part 2 student was a winner in the Vincent Ma awards run by Design Portfolio Marketing Services, has been interviewed on their blog. Design Portfolio have been generously supporting students in the Department through prizes for achievement and opportunities for work experience in their busy London studios for several years, in memory of former employee and Reading alumnus Vincent Ma.

A new Papal Inscription in Westminster Cathedral

Finished floor

Typography alumna, Caroline Webb, has designed and installed a new Papal inscription for Westminster Cathedral, to commemorate the visit of Pope Benedict in 2010.

The 7 foot long inscription is made of one piece of Carrara Marble inlayed with letters of green and red Porphery and lies in the main entrance to the Cathedral.

The marble inlay was done by Pietra Dura craftsman Thomas Greenaway.The inscription took 2 years to design and produce, and a week to fix in the floor. The commission was technically challenging in every way; Caroline will be writing a full article to document its creation.

Sanguinis 3 lines copy Quod copy  3 copy

50% chance of rain

UROP students Silchester
Left to right, Rachel Bartlett, Shyamali Abraham and Matt Standage, questionnaires at the ready
Public at Silchester
Many members of the public took time off from the dig to give us their input

Typography & Graphic Communication student, Matt Standage, has been working together with Meteorology student, Rachel Bartlett and Psychology student, Shyamali Abraham on a joint project between the University’s Meteorology Department, Centre for Information Design Research and Psychology Department on the communication of probabilistic weather forecasts. These are forecasts that show the chance of rain as a percentage – often used in American weather forecasts but less typical in the UK. In this study we are looking at people’s response to percentages presented as numbers, words (likely, unlikely etc.) and through graphic representation.

The project is part of the University’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities (UROP) scheme. In the picture (top) you see the UROP team poised to hand out questionnaires to members of the public visiting the Archeology Department’s open day at Silchester last Saturday.

The republic responded generously by taking time to complete our questionnaires, indicating what types of information they typically use to make weather-based decisions and how they prefer to see information about the chance of rain in forecasts. Some 250+ questionnaires later we’re very grateful to the Silchester team for hosting us, to all who kindly allowed themselves to be distracted from their visit to the dig to respond to the questionnaire and also to the many people in Reading town centre who also took part in the research.

Non-Latin festival in Bangkok

Granshan 2013

The University of Reading is a partner in the 2013 Granshan: Design and Identity conference in Bangkok, currently under way. The  Department is contributing with a special version of the “From hot-metal to OpenType” exhibition, which opened to the public yesterday in the library of Chulalongkorn University.

Speakers include Typography staff Gerard Unger and Gerry Leonidas, and graduates Paul Hunt and Ben Mitchell.

 

Reading at ICTVC 5, Nicosia

Reading at ICTVC 5, Nicosia

ICTVC 5

Reading staff and graduates have returned from the fifth International Conference on Typography & Visual Communication, hosted by the University of Nicosia. ICTVC is the brainchild of Dr Klimis Mastoridis (a Reading alumnus) who, since the first event in 2002, has given the conference a distinct character that sets it apart from most such events. Amongst typography-orientated events, ICTVC is probably the most diverse in the range of academics and practitioners it brings together. And, even in this smallest of its iterations, it attracted speakers and delegates from four continents.

The combination of research and practice makes ICTVC a very good fit for Typography, and it was no surprise to see the Department represented well. The speaker lineup included staff members Mary Dyson, Gerry Leonidas, and Sue Walker, and current PhD candidates Sallie Morris and Niki Sioki. PhD alumni Petra Cerne Oven, Sue Perks, Karel van der Waarde, and MA alumni Julián Moncada, Elena Papassissa, Vaibhav Singh, and Adi Stern also presented papers.

For a general report on the conference, head over to Mark Barratt’s post on the Eye magazine blog.

Enhancing employability: our partnership with DPS

DPS internship imageDesign & Print Studio (DPS) contributes significantly to our BA programme through modules in professional practice, more usually known as the ‘real jobs’ scheme. Students gain confidence through the proximity of a working design and production office, as this year’s degree show publications for Art and Typography demonstrate. And in a real vote of confidence in our current crop of students, DPS has just announced a paid-for internship for a graduating BA student starting this summer.