Category: Alumni

Eunji Kang: designer and thinker

South Korean designer Eunji Kang is one of the many 2012 MA graduates I didn’t get to talk to when I visited the presentation ceremonies in December, but I got to make up for it by chatting to her now, on a very cold January day, about her work and her experience at Goldsmiths.

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Eunji is not the kind of designer that wants to create just “pretty images”, or to make a product more marketable or saleable; instead, she is looking for projects were conceptual thinking is allowed in design practice. Coming from a background in Fine Art, she had always been interested in contemporary and conceptual art, but the start of her career found her in publishing, where she worked as a designer of book covers. Continue reading “Eunji Kang: designer and thinker”

Kirstin Toedtling: Non-ideal, super fun cities

Kirstin Toedtling graduated from the BA Design in 2012, the following is a summary of her final year project. Kirstin is now selling work here:

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This project envisions a fictional future London- it describes England’s metropolis after the flood. Instead of clinging to typical nightmare scenarios of futures I looked at the possibilities of a changing environment. A city which adapted to demographic and environmental transformations- a warmer and partly underwater future city. In this future city, Londoners climb up skyscrapers, bungee jump off buildings, go skiing on weekends, leave office blocks on waterslides or drift in Thames canals in a gondola.

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 Matt Ward

MA Design students at the presentation ceremonies

The presentation ceremonies are that final moment of student life when you can finally forget all worries, deadlines, coffee and sleepless nights. The hard work is over and has paid off: time to enjoy being congratulated by your family and friends and having your picture taken while wearing a rectangular cap for posterity. This year’s Design postgrads had their day of pictures, joy and rectangular hats yesterday morning, so we’d thought I’d be a good idea to take the pulse of the event and mingle with the crowd at the post-ceremony reception in the tents on College Green, just to hear in what state of mind are the Masters of Arts (or Research) in Design saying their goodbyes to Goldsmiths. Did they enjoy their studies? Would they recommend their course to newcomers? Do they have exciting future projects waiting for them?

It wasn’t easy to identify Design students amongst so many happy graduates celebrating their achievements, but luckily we eventually found Svenja Bickert and Linda Kwon, who studied for an MA in Design Futures. As its very name says, the course encouraged the students to think about the future of design, and also to apply a critical way of thinking. Designers aren’t necessarily used to writing essays and reflecting on their work in writing, said Linda and Svenja, but during their MA they were challenged to do so and they welcomed the challenge. Continue reading “MA Design students at the presentation ceremonies”