Category: Interviews and features

Goldsmiths Design career talks: Nick Marsh, Lost My Name

Early this year, the Design Department at Goldsmiths welcomed back a few of its graduates for a series of talks on career paths post-graduation; one of them was Nick Marsh, currently Vice President Product Designer at Lost My Name, a company which sells personalised children’s books.

Lost My Name is a very fast-growing business: it went from 12 to 100 employees since Nick joined, and currently publishes Britain’s best-selling children’s book. Nick’s role is mostly a managing one, and involves answering questions that are vital to the development of the company: “What products should we make? How do we define what market we’re in? What’s the relationship between the story worlds that we have? Should we design all our products ourselves or should we work with outside design companies or outside design teams?” Their model is an unusual one for publishing, as only books which are bought are printed, so the product is constantly improved, much like software.

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The Lost My Name website

Continue reading “Goldsmiths Design career talks: Nick Marsh, Lost My Name”

Material Desires Workshop: Design Led Explorations of the Home/Work Divide

“On February 17th, designers, researchers, PhD students, anthropologists and practitioners of various disciplines gathered for the Material Desires workshop, to do design led explorations of the home/work divide. The event, which took place at Goldsmiths, was led by PhD student Paulina Yurman from the Design department, and was sponsored by the EPSRC’s Balance Network.

The workshop consisted of design-led activities which aimed to open up a space for discussing our daily management of roles related to work, home, family and other domains, and to develop design proposals for debating and discussing in a group.

The morning session started with a ‘geography’ activity;  island shaped cards were used to create a landscape of our daily juggling of identities. Using geographical terms and linking them with daily activities encouraged free associations from which themes might emerge for discussions. For example, ‘valley of owed favours’ and ‘island of procrastination’ were loose terms for islands on the map that described the emotional landscape and helped us open a space from which to explore throughout the day. Continue reading “Material Desires Workshop: Design Led Explorations of the Home/Work Divide”

Goldsmiths Design career talks: Kirsty Minns, The Future Laboratory

In January, the Design Department at Goldsmiths welcomed back a few of its graduates for a series of talks on career paths post-graduation. One of the speakers was Kirsty Minns, currently a Creative Director for The Future Laboratory.

Kirsty, who first came to Goldsmiths ten years ago, did not have in mind a clear trajectory from the beginning: “The third year on the course was a reality check: I need to earn money from being a designer, how am I actually going to do this?” She reminisced about learning to make ceramics for her graduation project: “I spent a lot of time in a small hut at the back of the Lockwood Building, trying to learn a process that normally takes years to learn.

And I think that was what really exciting about Goldsmiths, it gives you these opportunities where you have to be quite proactive in learning new skills, and the support of the tutors was phenomenal.” Continue reading “Goldsmiths Design career talks: Kirsty Minns, The Future Laboratory”

Marguerite Humeau on reviving extinct worlds at MULTIPLEXER open lectures

Marguerite Humeau

On Friday, the Design department hosted its second MULTIPLEXER open lecture, with artist and designer Marguerite Humeau as a speaker.

Marguerite’s work is focused on reviving extinct or hidden worlds, as well as exploring the concept of fading, and the impossibility of talking about things we will never truly know or experience. These ideas were present in all the projects presented during the talk, titled “Indiana Jones in Google times”. In her “Prehistoric Creatures” project, for instance, Marguerite attempted to reconstruct the vocal tracks of extinct prehistoric animals, a difficult task considering that the sound organs of these species were not preserved in fossils.

Other works by Marguerite include recreating an 18th century musical instrument forbidden at the time for causing insanity in listeners, and reviving the singing voice of Cleopatra, or at least the closest possible approximation, performing a song in extinct languages spoken by the famous Egyptian queen. For these projects, the artist relied on extensive research, as well as support from scientists from a variety of fields.

Marguerite, who is a Royal College of Art graduate, encouraged other artists and designers to value their work and to invest in their ideas.

The next MULTIPLEXER open lecture will take place in April, with Goldsmiths Design lecturer Stuart Bannocks as a speaker.