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Design Research Group people

Fashion design - Graphic design - Interior design - Digital media design - Illustration and drawing - Computer games design - Theatre design

 


 

Fashion design

 

Dr Wendy Moody

Course Leader, BA (Hons) and MA Fashion Design

Deputy Head, Cambridge School of Art

Multi-disciplinary contexts run through Wendy's research history from collaboration with engineering and neuroscience on haptic-based projects through her collaborative PhD (clinical psychology & fMRI) focusing on the wearing experience. Wendy’s current inter and multi-disciplinary fashion/textiles practice and academic research is based upon buyer and wearer behavior. Wendy examines and questions the relationships between the self-concept, emotions, memories and body perception/detection. This includes conceptual and creative interpretation and fashion and textile storytelling, and qualitative research to add to academic debate into wearer behaviour. Drawing upon this and previous research where buying new clothing has show to be used as a tool for self-development, and with links to sustainability, Wendy is also interested in simulating design and wearer sensory experiences where wearers re-experience their own clothes, new existing clothes and creative designs - without the need to buy or waste.

 

Mark Hart

Lecturer, BA (Hons) Fashion Design

Mark has worked successfully as a freelance womenswear and knitwear designer, stylist and creative pattern cutter for a variety of national and international brands. His teaching specialisms are surface textiles, pattern cutting and 3D design realisation. His current research interest concerns the interplay between mathematics and design using digital media and technology to explore innovative practices relating to the 2D to 3D process. His recent projects investigate how topological principles can be translated vi a design context, and subsequently inform pattern cutting and fabrication techniques for fashion artefacts.


 

Graphic design

 

Will Hill

Will is a specialist in typography and graphic design, typeface design, print and design history. From a professional background in graphic design and illustration, Will's current practice and research activity reflects a wide-ranging fascination for type, letters and the visual use of language across both the applied and the fine arts. This includes work on vernacular lettering, the design of experimental display typefaces and research on revival and historic reference in type design. his work also reflects an ongoing interest in visual poetics, concrete poetry and the use of language in public art.

 

Jon Melton

Senior Lecturer, BA (Hons) Graphic Design

Jon specialises in type design. His practice-based research explores the empty spaces in typographic evolution, in order to develop new letterforms and speculative fonts that further our understanding of display and ornamented types. Through investigative practice he has generated a number of typefaces that explore the potential of historically-inspired letterforms in contemporary contexts. Often this work seeks to revive traditional good practice in typography. Jon's font generation and historical research leads him to speak at conferences nationally, with papers published in industry magazines and journals.

 

Nicholas Jeeves

Lecturer, Graphic Design

Nick continues to make graphic design in parallel with teaching commitments. In the past he's worked with Frank PR, Saatchi & Saatchi, The London Community Foundation, The Henry Moore Foundation, Hatfield House, Atelier Xavier Veilhan, The NUS, and the UK Film Council. More recently, he has consulted for Photography For Equality, and is also designer (Printed matter) for The Public Domain Review. His current design practice has moved away from the commercial into more personal, speculative projects in line with his research interests. These include editing and designing a new edition of Lucian's Dialogues of the Gods (PDR Press, 2016) and writing a book of sketch stories entitled At the Flea Market (self-published, 2016).


 

Interior design

 

Tim Kobin

Course Leader, BA (Hons) Interior Design

As well as lecturing, Tim continues to work as a production designer with an interest in new works and design for movement. his extensive academic and professional design career has allowed him to develop a diverse and creative practice, which includes the lighting of interior architecture buildings with a particular interest in ecclesiastic architecture. his current research focuses on the relationship between narrative and design in an urban landscape.

 

Benjamin Mackay

Senior Lecturer, BA (Hons) Interior Design

Research interests include working with place and narrative. Benjamin's teaching is concerned with questions around design process and reflection whilst testing 3D skills and exploring sub-conscious emotional connections to spatial environments.

 

Meriem McKenzie

Research interests are in the field of design and architecture education, with a focus on pedagogical approaches to the design studio and the apprenticeship model. In her teaching practice, she has a particular interest for modelling, drawing, creative thinking processes and using freehand drawings as the conceptual basis for drafting and developing design ideas.Other interests include contemporary curriculum practices and areas pertaining to localisation, internationalisation and globalisation.


 

Digital media design

 

Tina Burton

Course Leader, BA (Hons) Digital Media

Tina's research interests include artistic practice incorporating physical technology, interactive installations, 2D game design (particularly for children) and theories of new media practice. Following a fine art degree focusing on experimental film-making, Tina's career as a graphic interactive designer led her to collaborate on the creation of interactive applications for one of the first touchscreen software companies in the UK. Her Masters degree in Interactive Media and previous experience with touchscreen applications led her to create interactive artefacts that explore the hypnogogic state, leaving the participant to explore and discover the work intuitively.

Alongside this, she developed an interest in physical computing, which has become an integral part of her personal practice. She realised that areas of technology have the potential to challenge the Cartesian principle of the passive/objective onlooker and began exploring phenomenology. This led to concerns with how technology affects one's sense of self and how immersive environments can potentially elicit visceral experiences. Tina is currently seeking funding for a BBC Big Screen interactive project with the hope of investigating how group interaction affects both the screen and the crowd behaviour.

 

Emily Godden

Lecturer Practitioner, Digital Media

Emily is an award-winning artist, creative technologist, educator and founder of social enterprise Virtually There Studio. Emily is soon to commence a PhD: “A practice-led inquiry into the use of immersive media to co-create and curate micro-restorative experiences in the healthcare setting” at Cambridge School of Art.


 

Illustration and drawing

 

Chris Draper

Course Leader, BA (Hons) Illustration

Working for a variety of high-profile clients on a variety of projects from editorial, book publishing and advertising, Chris's breadth of professional knowledge is kept right up to date in this rapidly evolving discipline. Chris is currently External Examiner at Camberwell for MA Illustration and MA Designer Maker, and the University of Worcester for BA (Hons) Illustration. Chris's research interests include editorial illustration, collage/assemblage, experimental photographic processes, and collecting and taxonomy.


 

Computer games design

 

Baris Isikguner

Senior Lecturer, BA (Hons) Computer Games Art, MA Computer Games Development

Baris is a doctoral researcher and a certified master-level animator. Baris was awarded the DNIIT Certificate by the National Institute of Information Technology (NIT). His research is based on enhancing the believability of a 3D key-framed character by layering it with procedural animation. His other research interests include: animation theory and practice; organic and non-organic modelling; rigging; animating; rendering for games and films.


 

Theatre design

 

John Clarke

John studied theatre design at the Slade School of Fine Art. John has designed for The Drama Centre London, the Webber Douglas Academy, Finchley Children's Music Group, Les Azurailes Opera, Nice, Morley College Opera and the Royal Academy of Music. He was a founder member of Curious Opera Group, devising and conducting workshops for children and their parents, on themese from opera.

John has also designed for Anglia OperaL: in 2011, Dido and Aeneas and Aeneas in Hell (a UK premiere); in 2013, a dramatised version of Carmina Burana; in 2015, The Threepenny Opera. His research interests include theatre design for the fringe, small-scale business and art practitioners