Paul Elliman talks about his design work with typefaces, test-patterns and even the human voice. The result of an interest in both the rough, material edges of new technology and the invisible impulse of language and ideas.

Thursday 12th September @ 6.00pm
Storey Hall (Bld.16 Swanston St)

Info & bookings call 99255347
email: maya.huxley@rmit.edu.au

Please let other staff and students know.
As this will be a popular lecture for the design community I advise you book early.

Paul Elliman describes his design work with typefaces, test-patterns and even the human voice as emphasizing the rough, material edges of new technology. He attended Portsmouth Polytechnic (1980-82) where he switched from sociology to complete an art foundation course.

Essentially a self-taught designer, Elliman was a member of the City Limits Magazine collective (1984-1986) and then became Design Director of the British music magazine Wire (1986-1988) before embarking on a career as a freelance designer.

In 1991 he was awarded Design & Art Direction Gold and Silver medals for design and publication of an electronic journal that utilized fax and email. In 1992 he was the recipient of a Barclay's New Stages prize for a collaboration with British choreographer Rosemary Butcher. Recent work includes commissions from Princeton School of Architecture; a collaboration with cycling activists Critical Mass; a series of imaging test patterns with Xerox, for the American Institute of Graphic Arts; and cover designs for Everything Magazine, a London-based art magazine.

His work has been exhibited internationally, including "Lost and Found: Critical Voices in New British Design" (The British Council, 1999) and "Century City" (Tate Modern, London, 2001), as well as in smaller gallery shows, including Galerie Jan Mot, in Brussels and Galerie Nils Staerk in Stockholm (both 2002). He has been a contributor to FUSE, the electronic type publication published by Font Shop International, and he has published essays in eye magazine, London; Dot Dot Dot, in Amsterdam; and IDEA magazine in Tokyo. He currently writes a regular column for IDEA, called Invisible Language.

Elliman has taught in the Cultural Studies Department at Central St. Martins School of Art, London; The School of Visual Communications, University of East London; and at the University of Texas at Austin, and been a guest speaker and visiting critic at a number of schools, including the Staatliche Akademie in Stuttgaart; Calarts in Los Angeles; Ecal in Lausanne; Boston Museum School of Fine Arts; and Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem. He has been a project tutor at the Jan van Eyck Academy in the Netherlands, since 1996, and assistant professor at Yale School of Art since 1998. Currently he is also an advisor to the new Shanghai University of Art and Design.