Cal Swann: Professor of Typographic Design and Legacy

Lefteris Heretakis

Dan Vlahos – Dynamic Media, Critical Thinking, and Design Pedagogy – Design Education Talks

Dan Vlahos is a Boston-based design leader, educator, and researcher. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at Bentley University and is serving on the AIGA Boston Board. Vlahos is also a member of the Boston Society of Printers, the Design Management Institute, and was a founding member of Design Museum Boston (now CoDesign Collaborative). His interdisciplinary design work has been recognized by the AIGA, the One Club, Print, How, and the Interactive Media Council. Vlahos began his career in Arnold Worldwide’s Volkswagen Design Group and later served as Creative Director for Shepley Bulfinch architects. His past clients include Harvard University, Duke University, Educators for Social Responsibility, and the Industrial History Center. Vlahos received a BFA in Graphic Design from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and returned to MassArt’s Dynamic Media Institute to complete his MFA in Design in 2017. Vlahos’ research explores empowerment, complexity, dynamic media, sustainability, and creative learning. In 2020, Merrimack College’s Interdisciplinary Institute named Vlahos a Presidential Fellow, and in 2021, Vlahos entered into the Design Incubation program as a Writing Fellow. In 2023, he became a USGBC LEED Green Associate and an AIGA Design Leader (DL). In 2024, Vlahos was named an AACSRE Emerging Fellow, and in June 2025, his short motion-graphics-based film Towards a Dynamic Discipline of Design premiered at the MODE Summit in Prague.Link to website: https://danvlahos.comLink to Towards a Dynamic Discipline of Design motion graphics film: http://dynamicdesign.filmSince 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
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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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