John Paul Dowling (National College of Art & Design, Dublin)

This paper will focus on a collaborative project — Archive(ist) — between 2nd Year students from the Department of Communication Design, NCAD Dublin and NIVAL (National Irish Visual Arts Library). This project aimed to instil the importance of repositories of knowledge and use them a conduit to teach typography and book design. Students were tasked with publishing an exhibition in the form of the book. As a designer, gathering, organising and designing content is key to one’s creative practice. In this project students were tasked to explore the role of the curator within the context of the professional graphic designer. The brief promoted engagement with a social/cultural environment outside of the design studio and utilised investigative research methods to access primary and secondary content. Students were expected to study their chosen subjects thoroughly and with a critical awareness that demonstrated understanding of the subject, audience and cultural capital.

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This ‘exhibition’ manifested itself in the form of a publication that explored chosen elements/aspects of the archive. Often this could be an aspect of heritage/history, cultural impact within Ireland, the role of the artist, gallery tradition, or the national and international standing of NIVAL. Curation (exploration, analysis, selecting, interpreting and editing) of the archives was key to the dictation of content, and translation to the aesthetic form. This paper will demonstrate how active learning techniques can be implemented through live projects — utilising local archive and library facilities—to give a holistic educational experience while greatly enhancing designed outputs from students of the creative industries.

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John Paul Dowling is heavily involved in typography. His work in research, education and as a practitioner has been recognised in various capacities by AtypI, ISTD, SOTA, European Design Awards and Beazley Designs of the Year. He has spoken at many design conferences and institutions, most notably TypeCon 2011 / 2014, Face Forward 2015, ICTVC 2016, AtypI 2016, OFFSET 2017 and The Future 2017; where he interviewed Dr. Nelly Ben Hayoun and Stefan Sagmeister. He has lectured internationally and is currently Head of Communication Design at the National College of Art & Design, Dublin. He is also Education Director, Board Member and Fellow of the International Society of Typographic Designers. In 2017 he was awarded Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).