Spark goes graphic

Luke Wood and Jonty Valentine, the founders of The National Grid magazine, spoke in Hamilton today about the discipline of graphic design and the need for students to “disrupt” professional practice.

Graphic designers Wood and Valentine were the second speakers at this year’s Spark week.
They separated the presentation into two parts: “what is design?” and “all our best students are unemployable.”

Wood and Valentine  created The National Grid six years ago which is an independent graphic design magazine published in New Zealand and distributed internationally.

Valentine, a past tutor at Wintec, discussed whether it was possible to define graphic design.
He talked about how design is a type of problem solving and stated he did not have an answer for what design really was.

“I think the question what is design is too big, it is like asking what is writing. The answer to that question keeps changing for me over the years,” he said.

Wood focused on the academic side of graphic design, touching on “all our best students are unemployable” and addressing The National Grid as a research project.

“I feel that I am over educating my students. When I say I don’t care if my students get jobs or not it’s not entirely true because I do want them to go into professional practice in some way, but what I want them to do is go in and disrupt professional practice.”

They are holding as exhibition with Ramp Gallery, which is being hosted by Draw Inc, at 5.30 pm today. The exhibition “Design of Designers” will showcase artefacts of The National Grid.
The launch party for the next issue will be held after the exhibition. In the next issue they will be working alongside Wintec.