Rob Banham explains what is expected of a high quality essay for Graphic Communication and Typography BA, and how university essays are different to A-level essays.
Category: teaching
Real Jobs: Celebrating over five decades of professional design practice on our undergraduate course
Alongside our degree show opening last week, we also launched a new exhibition celebrating our ‘Real Jobs’ scheme.
Real Jobs has been our flagship professional experience programme for as long as Typography has existed as a department. It allows our students their first taste of working alongside clients to co-create, and deliver on, a design brief. Our graduates regularly tell us that their experiences on these projects exposed them to unique and powerful moments that helped them secure their first paid positions, and continue to inform their professional practice today.
Standout projects on display include the Tomos Jones’ recent gold medal-winning University display at the Chelsea Flower Show and Maddi Davies’ collaborative project on Margaret Atwood, Second Sight. But a full range of work is on show, everything from books to branding, and we hope it is a fitting tribute to the students, staff and clients who have contributed to making Real Jobs such a successful part of the curriculum here in Typography.
The exhibition runs until 28 June. If you’ve ever been a client of Real Jobs, or if you’d like to know more about how the scheme could help your project or organisation, please do stop by to enjoy this celebration of five decades of students’ first steps into the world of professional graphic design.
To see our archive of recent Real Jobs, click here. If you think you have a project that would benefit from student design support you can also book in your own project here.
“I believe this is a great scheme, both supporting students with real life projects and work experience and also providing great value to small companies in need of professional design support” – Sirin Myles, International Education Consultant
“The Real Jobs scheme is an excellent way for students to get experience working towards a brief and is a great way to help everyone involved gain experience that will be useful when transitioning into a working environment. I will be recommending the scheme to my employer as I believe it provides unique opportunities for all involved.” – Isabel Cash, Holland House Books
Ravensburg ’19 and the D&AD awards
Our collaboration with DHBW Ravensburg saw 40 German students join us for a day of presentations centred on the D&AD New Blood awards. The exchange also saw five Part 3 students, along with Erasmus-supported Teaching Fellow Sara Chapman, make the trip in the other direction.
Lauren Towner: The life of a professional illustrator
Lauren Towner came to speak with our undergraduates about the experience of creating illustrations on-demand, on-brief and on-time, and what designers can learn from the perspective of other specialist in any creative process.
‘It’s never right the first time’
Alison Black led week 3's Baseline Shift talk on approaches to academic writing. She focused on the emotional experience of writing, the barriers that stop us settling down to write, and the mindset required to produce good writing.
Paul Luna: a very short introduction to typography
'It's not all about fonts!' At a special Baseline Shift session, our former Head of Department stressed the importance of design for reading.
Typography alumni talks: a look at our future
Typography graduates from the past 15 years returned to give us an insight into how their careers have progressed since graduating.
Creativity, Ideation, and Process Workshop
Wendy Mclean, a Teaching Fellow in Studio Art at Reading, led a fun and interactive workshop about creativity, ideation, and process.
IBM iX: design thinking, processes and opportunities
Milly Longbottom and Will Trickey, alumni of our department who now work at IBM, came to talk to Part 1 students about UX design process and internship opportunities at Big Blue's cutting edge London office.
Visiting Oxford University Press
Part 2 students who opted to design book covers for Oxford University Press in their design practice module were lucky enough to be given the opportunity to visit OUP headquarters in Jericho, Oxford.