A collaboration with Post Office and Freeview on research examining people’s comprehension of broadband and TV providers’ web sites was picked up by the media last week, with Alison Black appearing on Sky News, Radio 5 Live and various local radio stations. Read more about the work here.
Students present a brand proposal for Friends of Hlekweni, fundraising charity for training and education organisation in Hlekweni, Zimbabwe.
Coinciding with a celebration of the work of Ken Garland and in the spirit of the First Things First manifesto, Part 3 students took on five not-for-profits and social enterprises to ‘brand’ as their last project of Part 3. Thirty-seven students worked for five clients: Charmian Allright from The Luton Hoo Childrens’ Book Festival, Don Rowe from Friends of Hlekweni — a charity fundraising for the Quaker Training Centre in Hlekweni, Zimbabwe, Nikandre Kopke from Mazímas — a roaming restaurant to showcase the cuisine of socially marginalised women, Lucy Colbeck and Owen Everett from Watford Food Revolution — a food coop campaigning for the benefits of local food, and Simon Chapman from Notmymum.com — a student accommodation swap.
The project lasts for four weeks, and brings together skills learned over three years. It is an opportunity to work on a relatively open brief from a real client, in any direction that students think appropriate, and plays to their particular interest or skill areas — for instance, the Childrens’ Book Festival inspired students to make their own illustrations, one of the Mazímas groups made a bespoke typeface, one of the Watford Food Revolution made their own video, and one of the Notmymum.com groups coded their own interfaces for a website and app. More images of their work here.
Students present branding proposal for Mazímas, roaming restaurant to showcase the cuisine of socially marginalised wome
This week saw the launch of an exciting new project for Part 2 students in collaboration with Oxford University Press. OUP Education Division’s head of schools design Kate Kunac-Tabinor and designer Fiona MacColl have provided realistic briefs for innovative new covers for Keystage 3 textbooks in Science, English, and French, and they explained the design commissioning process to students on the Editorial Design module as part of the project launch. They’ll be returning to Reading at the end of term to see the results …
Information Design students respond instinctively to a wayshowing solution by getting out their smartphones. They were spotted while visiting the Bristol offices of City ID – thanks to Mike Rawlinson of City ID and to Beth Shepherd for organizing the visit.
Ian Watson from Bifröst University, Iceland, is visiting the Department, and will talk to MA students on Friday 22 February. His thesis, Cognitive design: Creating the sets of categories and labels that structure our shared experience, can be read here.
Danish architect and graphic designer Steen Ejlers wil be talking in the Department on Monday 25 February at 10am about the Danish lettering tradition of the 20th century.
Steen Ejlers is associate professor at the Institute of Design & Communication at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. His current research project ‘Danish Font Design of the 20th Century’ is a culmination of many years of historical interest in type design, and he has published books on Claus Achton Friis, Gunnar Biilmann Petersen, and Ib Andersen.
Centre for Information Design Research have just completed a collaborative project with the Cabinet Office Behavioural Insights Team to develop a pack to support job seekers looking for work. The effectiveness of the pack is now being evaluated in JobCentres. See CIDR blog for more details.
