We understand your love for exceptional graphic design! This field is a game-changer, capable of tackling the most urgent issues of today. In this article, we highlight the key figures, educational platforms, and resources that are driving a shift towards a more impactful future in design. Keep reading to discover the artists, schools, queer platforms and magazines on graphic design.

 

Education equips you to become not only a graphic designer but a critical thinker and skillful practitioner who can develop outstanding concepts for visual communication. Here are some tips:

 

Barcelona design school

LABASAD is the only exclusively online design school that delivers classes 100% live – this gives students an in-person experience in an online format and this is how we guarantee such a unique, high-quality learning experience.

 

Design Academy Eindhoven

It is one of the world’s leading design schools, recognized internationally for its forward-thinking and renowned professors and alumni.

 

 

KABK Graphic Design

Here you can investigate all the nuances of type design and typography, become familiar with interdisciplinary research, work with moving image or on projects for real clients.

 

Design podcasts

Whether you’re a seasoned podcast enthusiast or new to the medium, finding the perfect one can be as daunting as navigating a crowded bookshop. Fear not! Some of the exciting podcasts await below:

 

On Design offers a contemplative look at design through numerous lenses. Particularly great for deepening your understanding on the hows and whys behind the work of leading industry figures, On Design also serves as an amazing collection of conversations on how each guest sees the world.

 

 

Founders of the Graphic Support Group podcast, the duo explore the emotional and psychological dimensions of design practices via their podcast. Talking to “a cadre of amazing graphic designers”, they hack away at “past traumas, spiritual mantras, PSDs, PTSD and inner peace”, their site explains.

 

For those wanting to focus on branding and keeping up with everything creative agency-related, Private View(s) is for you. the podcast came out of wanting to expose the wider industry to the “inspiring” conversations it gets to hear every day. Private View(s) breaks down studio processes, studio culture, topics and issues everyone needs to consider when creating a brand.

 

 

Platforms:

Queer Design Club

The club is a community and directory for LGBTQIA+ designers. It’s the first data project of its kind on the queer design experience. The organisation hopes to foster change in the industry. It has revealed that queer designers are underpaid, overworked and more likely to experience microaggressions and homophobia at work.

 

 

Trifle Studio

Peckham-based charity arts organisation Intoart has unveiled Trifle, a groundbreaking multi-disciplinary design studio. Notably, Trifle is the first of its kind in the UK, with all of its work crafted by talented artists and designers who have learning disabilities.

 

 

Forever Magazine

With an eccentric design approach and platforming writing from the periphery, the magazine aims to bring back “the community, enthusiasm and sheen. The Forever team were simply keen to get a bit of diversity of content and visual difference on the shelves.

 

 

 

Graphic Designers

Here is a hand-picked selection of talents in the graphic design world, doing exciting work in their fields. They are crafting a unique and important voice in the world of graphic design right now:

 

Angela Lian has built a design playground using dance, TikTok video art and her body. Many of Angela’s designs – both personal and professional – feature dance alongside design elements as an important means of expression.

 

 

Meanwhile, Wieden+Kennedy London launched a design studio, called Not Wieden+Kennedy.

‘NOT is about going beyond nice, polite, rational and respectful- to surprise, inspire and incite. To turn a simple thought into something that turns heads and blows minds.’

 

 

Another project The Rodina, headed by a designer Tereza Ruller tests strategies of performance art, play, and subversion.

 

 

Mood for some old-fashioned sustainable works? Andrei Dominiq, AKA James Junk, is a graphic designer based in Southern California. With a specialty in vintage poster design, creative direction and video storytelling, Andrei’s work is exclusively digital – he’s all about saving paper, ink and electricity. Andrei’s designs focus on mental health, creativity and self-development, especially as a queer person of colour.

 

 

Laura Hilbert, on the contrary, builds an identity you can feel and create with your hands by using the technique of printing on clay. Every part of the visual identity is made out of screen-printed clay, deformed, photographed and digitally edited. The result is viscerally smushed, pressed, pulled, thumbed and full of streaky ink – in short, fantastic.

 

 

Check out Viktor Hammarberg, a freelance graphic designer who has worked on some of the biggest albums of 2022 and won a Latin Grammy for his work on Motomami.

 

And finally, Josu Larrea who uses graphic design as a tool to understand gender, space and identity. Basque graphic and motion designer Josu Larrea has an aesthetic that’s hard to pin down, and for good reason. Every piece in Josu’s portfolio feels fully realised and incredibly fresh and exciting.

 

 

Credits:

Cover images: (c) Carmen Acevedo, (c) KABK