I thought some people might be interested in what it was like at college (HND in Graphic Design in the UK in 1990) for a thirty something graphic designer like me. I know I would love to hear what it is like know if any students or recently qualified people would like to share their design education experiences.
I remember the first day finding the room – containing about 25 drawing boards (yes you heard right – drawing boards) and finding the one that had been allocated to me. My design education was in the period where most people were using computers for graphic design but clearly the college could not afford many of them. Yes there was a computer room containing about 30 macs – mac classic (not colour that would have been stretching it) – those little ones with screens of about 15 cm square. This room though was shared between several hundred students so you would have to try and book your space for maybe an hour or two in the week. We used Macwrite (a poor mans word) Macdraw ( a completely uncontrollable drawing package) and Macromedia Freehand. Quark was the program that people were using in the industry but again at about £1000+ a time, even in 1990, I think the college owned one copy, and I certainly never got to see it.
A scanner yes I think there was one A4 black and white scanner in the room and the luxury of an A4 black and white laser printer. Who needs a colour printer when you could attempt to hand render your typography – with a good old rotring ink pen (I was so bad at it) and for glorious colour you could use the omnicron machine on safemat. I can hear you asking what is omnicron and safemat. Basically you would create your text in black and white – run the safemat (sort of like a sheet of clear A4 sticky back plastic) run it through a photocopier, then you would get your sheet of omnicron film/paper (in a colour of your choice), put it on top of the safemat with black text, run it through and omnicron machine which sort of heated it up and the colour would stick to the black text. Then you took the backing off the safemat and stuck your (often patchy) coloured text on to your hand done or photographically printed visual…..simple!
We would be given a project – often they would last 6 weeks, can you imagine – 6 weeks to design a poster. I would be lucky to get a day now. And in that 6 weeks you wouldn’t produce poster options as you would for a client, no you would produce 1 poster. It was quite bizaar and quite like anything that resembled the real world. The good things were having the facilities like the Photography studio and screen printing rooms at your hand to experiment with and of course the people.
So what is design at college like now?
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5 Comments
Ah the memories, i was a collage in 1992-94 doing a similar course and all those points were still true 2 years later – except we had a few copies of quark.
we also had one colopur LC in teh corner which we had to book time on with our DTP tutor – helloe Steve Mendoza if you are still out ther!
Dont forget the grant enlargers for scaling up you hand renderings – how many layers of layout paper did you stick together with masking tape?
PS – apologies for the spelling and typos – didnt proof it before hitting send.
oh the irony…student mistakes!
Do you remember the PMT machines (why did they call them that!) for creating bromides for artwork too. I am so glad we don’t have to do that now – I would have swapped jobs by now.
Haha – perversely, I’d give my right arm to get my hands on some of that kit!
I’m a mature student doing a HND course and, while there are similarities (several weeks for a single product) we have none of that sort of eqipment – just a multifunciton copier/scanner and a stack of Macs. Makes the studios look appropriately ‘designy’ to visiting VIPs but really not an environment condusive to creative experimentation.
I think that, with it being a vocational course and also being only 2 years, there is much more of a production-line atmosphere surrounding the students than degree students might be familiar with. This is a bit of a double edged sword I believe. We hear a lot about degree students who basically have little or no workplace know-how or understanding of how they will have to operate “real world” but this is just the sort of thing we are being taught regularly. On the other hand, I can imagine students coming out of our the course with a wealth of technical and industry knowledge but in dire need of further creative development (myself included!). Having a mortgage and bills to pay, my partner and I could not have afforded for me to have gone onto an extended period of study so I’m in a position of making the best of what’s available. I suppose, in a creative field, you’re never really done learning so I try and look at it as kickstarting a process more than anything.
One of the most beneficial parts of the second year and the most affirming experience of the course was our work placements which ran throughout this February. College projects often allow a lot of room for interpretation and can be very open which is good but they can lack the substance of ‘live’ work and the satisfaction that goes with seeing something you’ve done go out into the world as opposed to just disappearing into the growing mountain of A2 mount boards stacked on top of the wardrobe! Everyone got a lot out of it and I have to confess that, when my placement ended, I was truly sad to leave and return to the bubble of student life.
Guess that about covers it – now back to google to find out more about omnicroms!
Its interesting to hear how things are now (that really makes me sound old), much more business driven than they used to be by the sound of it. It sound like what is really needed is a cross between the HND and degree course where you get a good balance of creativity and real business experience.
By the way, you never lose the mountain of A2 mountboards. I have loads stacked at the side of the fridge in my office – its a kind of design statement (its not just I’m messy, honest).