Lecture by Colin Davies

Today, Colin Davies, Creative Director of OneNineFour design studio, came into the college to give FdA Graphic Design students a talk on his career experiences and the industry...

Colin Davies is a self taught graphic designer with no design related qualifications; Colin told us he built up his skills by reading books and magazines, attending studio visits and lectures and most importantly, practice, practice, practice! He built up his own design studio (based in Newcastle) and has worked with the likes of Go North East, Newcastle University, Gateshead Council and the NHS.

Colin gave us his 10 lessons in life:

1.      Trust your instinct
2.      Develop your own identity
3.      Make yourself appear bigger than you are
4.      Get everything in writing
5.      Have a solid idea
6.      If you don’t think you can do it, do it anyways!
7.      Get it proof read
8.      If there’s a problem, talk about it
9.      Be a nice person and people will remember you
10.  Develop your own intellectual property

A particular piece of work that he showed us really stood out to me, which was design work for Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service. OneNineFour created a recruitment campaign, influenced by TWFRS ethos who employ 1253 people in the North East, each employee playing a valuable part of the team. To reflect this, OneNineFour created an illustration featuring 1253 items, one for every single person:

I love the boldness of the red to represent the Fire & Rescue service and the simplistic illustrations are appealing and compact, fitting together like a jigsaw. The overall recruitment pack is neat and eye-catching, a great promotional set.