Eye Magazine

The Summer School attracted a diverse number of attendees, from established design directors to current students from Germany, Italy, Belgium and the UK. The line-up of speakers and collaborators included designer Anthony Burrill, illustrator Jiro Bevis, digital creative Mark Kremers and publishing house Hato Press.

Most of the multi-disciplinary workshops took a craft-based approach to design, but Marc Kremers, with the help of the workshop participants, created a sleek website called Deptford Rising – a response to his ‘fear of gentrification’.

Anthony Burrill (see ‘Over the rainbow’ in Eye 75) conducted a one-day workshop that was fondly referred to as ‘the design therapy session’. Participants were encouraged to talk about their greatest fears, and synthesise them and express them in a single phrase. The phrases were drawn on blackboards – they ranged from classic fears such as failure or a lack of freedom, to less-explored fears, which included: Sainsbury’s Basics meats; ‘having to deal with maths again’; and the aggressive rap stylings of Busta Rhymes. (Burrill not only conducted this workshop and was the opening speaker of the lecture series but he also played an impressive DJ set at the closing party – worthy of Berghain in Berlin.)

Pau Sampera’s session explored an anxiety held by many designers – surrendering control of your work to external factors such as foreign producers, print houses, Internet Explorer, etc. – and focused on generative design methods.

The final day consisted of a series of 30-minute lectures by design professionals, a psychology professor and a film screening from Metahaven. While some of the participating speakers reverted to fail-safe ‘portfolio porn’ presentations, Rejane Dal Bello gave an inspiring talk about her vibrant work for Studio Dumbar, Milton Glaser and Wolff Olins. Dal Bello began with confessions of her most anxious experiences and admitted that once during a job interview she accidentally meshed together the words ‘internship’ and ‘course’ and told her prospective employer that she had ‘intercourse’ with Milton Glaser. She continued by presenting copious amounts of impressive work which prompted one audience member to ask the question ‘So, when do you sleep?’

Another lively and informative speaker from day three was physiologist Richard Firth-Godbehere, who spoke about cognitive theories of emotions.

Overall, the workshops were successfully curated in a way that allowed the theme of fear to be confronted by its participants, from implicit to more esoteric explorations of the subject.

The 2014 Registration Summer School came to an end with an exhibition in the Old Tidemill School playground and gardens on the Thursday evening. The organisers – young designers Ross Bennett, Andrew Thorpe, Callum Copley and Myles Palmer – should have no fear that their summer school will only get better in the coming years.

Anna Kealey, design writer, educator, creative recruiter, London

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It is available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions and single issues.