Cal Swann: Professor of Typographic Design and Legacy

Lefteris Heretakis

Simon Collins – What Design Schools Get Wrong About the Real World – Design Education Talks

Simon Collins is one of the most internationally experienced figures working at the intersection of design education, creative leadership and innovation. His career spans global brands including Nike, Zegna and Polo Ralph Lauren, leadership roles at Parsons School of Design, advisory work with governments and major institutions, and his current position as Chief Creative Officer of the Design Innovation Institute Shanghai. Having lived and worked across Europe, the United States and China, Simon brings a rare perspective on how creativity, education and industry intersect across cultures.In this conversation, we explore the evolving purpose of art and design education at a time when artificial intelligence, globalisation and rapidly changing industries are forcing educators to rethink long-held assumptions. Rather than focusing on software or technology, Simon argues that the true purpose of a design school is to teach students how to learn, how to remain curious, and how to approach complex problems with confidence and imagination. Drawing on decades of experience as both practitioner and educator, he reflects on design thinking, innovation, sustainability, industry collaboration, educational philosophy and the relationship between Western and Eastern approaches to creative education.This is a conversation about far more than fashion or design. It is about the qualities that make creative people valuable in an uncertain world: curiosity over certainty, learning over knowing, and thoughtful action over fashionable rhetoric. Whether you are an educator, student, designer, researcher or creative leader, Simon Collins offers an honest and thought-provoking perspective on what art and design education can become when it refuses to separate imagination from reality, and creativity from responsibility.Since its inception in 2019, Design Education Talks podcast has served as a dynamic platform for the exchange of insights and ideas within the realm of art and design education. This initiative sprang from a culmination of nearly a decade of extensive research conducted by Lefteris Heretakis. His rich background, intertwining academia, industry, and student engagement, laid the foundation for a podcast that goes beyond the conventional boundaries of educational discourse.See all of our work on on https://linktr.ee/thenewartschoolFollow us on twitter at @newartschoolRead our latest articles at https://newartschool.education/and https://heretakis.medium.com/Equipment used to produce the podcast:Rodcaster pro IIRode NT1 5th generationElgato Low profile Microphone ArmMonster Prolink Studio Pro microphone cableThe rest of the equipment is here 👉https://kit.co/heretakis/podcasting
  1. Simon Collins – What Design Schools Get Wrong About the Real World
  2. Graham Fink – Why Process Matters More Than Finish in Creative Work
  3. Dan Vlahos – Dynamic Media, Critical Thinking, and Design Pedagogy
  4. Jan Kubasiewicz on Teaching Design as a System of Meaning
  5. Nikolaus Hafermaas – Berlin Unplugged: Design, Education, and the Courage to Disrupt

Cal Swann attended art school in his hometown at Leicester College of Art in 1951. Specialising in typography under Tom Westley for the last three years, he gained the National Diploma in Design (Typography) and Full Tech C&G in Typographic Design in 1956.

RAF National Service followed, and then quick career moves in print design, a couple of advertising agencies and eventually lecturing. Job chasing took him to London and elsewhere around UK. He produced his first book Techniques of Typography in 1969 while lecturing at Manchester College of Art and Design. An interest in linguistics was enhanced with an MA in Applied Linguistics, Lancaster in 1986, resulting in his second book Language and Typography in 1991, also with Lund Humphries.

Cal was Head of Graphic Design at Saint Martin’s School of Art in Covent Garden from 1981-86 and his last position in UK was as Dean and Professor of the Faculty of Art and Design at Liverpool Polytechnic.

He moved to Australia in 1989 as Head of Design at the University of South Australia where he was awarded a Professorship in Typographic Design. Cal was in 1996 appointed Professor of Design at Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia where he launched the first totally online Master of Design in 1998. Retiring from fulltime professoring in 2001, he was still active in design and teaching and developed and taught three typographic design units online for Virtu Design Institute until 2019.

He is continuing writing and designing (and playing a little amateur jazz on vibraphone) and enjoying a relaxed retirement with his wife Sandra, about 50K south of Perth and next to the Bush, in Western

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Published by Lefteris Heretakis

Navigating you through the disruption in #art, #design and #designeducation.

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