Design Education Talks Ep. 74 - Cal Swann

Cal Swann attended art school in his hometown at Leicester College of Art in 1951. Specialising in typography under Tom Westley for the last three years, he gained the National Diploma in Design (Typography) and Full Tech C&G in Typographic Design in 1956. 

RAF National Service followed, and then quick career moves in print design, a couple of advertising agencies and eventually lecturing. Job chasing took him to London and elsewhere around UK. He produced his first book Techniques of Typography in 1969 while lecturing at Manchester College of Art and Design. An interest in linguistics was enhanced with an MA in Applied Linguistics, Lancaster in 1986, resulting in his second book Language and Typography in 1991, also with Lund Humphries.
 
Cal was Head of Graphic Design at Saint Martin’s School of Art in Covent Garden from 1981-86 and his last position in UK was as Dean and Professor of the Faculty of Art and Design at Liverpool Polytechnic. 

He moved to Australia in 1989 as Head of Design at the University of South Australia where he was awarded a Professorship in Typographic Design. Cal was in 1996 appointed Professor of Design at Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia where he launched the first totally online Master of Design in 1998. Retiring from fulltime professoring in 2001, he was still active in design and teaching and developed and taught three typographic design units online for Virtu Design Institute until 2019.

He is continuing writing and designing (and playing a little amateur jazz on vibraphone) and enjoying a relaxed retirement with his wife Sandra, about 50K south of Perth and next to the Bush, in Western Australia.

Transcript

Lefteris Heretakis: 0:09

Hello, and welcome to design education talks podcast by the new art school. Our guest today is Cal Swan. Welcome, Cal.

Cal Swann: 0:19

Hello, thank you for having me.

Lefteris Heretakis: 0:22

It's a great pleasure to have you here today.

Cal Swann: 0:25

Tell us about you and your work. Well, hi, I've been a graphic or type of graphic designer for 50 years. I started out at art school when I was 16 years old. And that was quite a new experience coming from an all boys Grammar School with then getting into an art school in the 1950s. In England, with all those beautiful big boys and girls, it was quite a shock. No shock. Fantastic. Typography was a comparatively untouched field. Certainly in term in existence. It was. Nobody had heard of a type of graphic designer. In fact, nobody really heard of designers. But in my art school, we just got a new teacher of typography, who was straight out of industry. My hometown wasn't fortunately for me, Quantico Centre for printing. And the design standard was quite high, who was a teacher, who was my teacher was straight out of the printing section, and was really a very interesting guy. If you really knew his stuff. It was lovely.

Lefteris Heretakis: 1:54

Oh, fantastic. Fantastic. So what was the article you started in? Sorry, what was the article you started in?

Cal Swann: 2:02

It unless the College of Art is the College of Art?

Lefteris Heretakis: 2:04

Yeah.

Cal Swann: 2:06

Which was lucky because it was quite a good one. I think, in the 1950s, you know, maybe a lot of our scores were not that great and certainly outside of London. But less than had, along with Birmingham, London and Manchester. Leicester had postgraduate courses, it was recognised as a postgraduate centre. So that was pretty, pretty advanced for the time. I was just lucky to be in the right place.

Lefteris Heretakis: 2:40

So what happened, what happened there during your studies?

Cal Swann: 2:43

Well, I was trained as a time graphic designer. And I was I was an unusual option, because I was then placed into the school of printing. And I was the only student that Tom Wesley had a full time art student that Tom had. And so I had a one to one relationship with a tutor, which was, of course, terrific. And I learned so much from that guy who had such a lot to offer. And he was a lovely man to be with as well. So the last three years of my article, tell him what five years in total, I spent, really under the wing of Tom Wesley came out as actually quite a competent typographer. Particularly as I'm being trained in the printing School. And in those days, of course, that was just a letterpress just about everything was produced letterpress those days. Offset lithography was beginning to take over as the big business end. But for most designers was specifying typographic layouts for the printer. And it was kind of a discipline to know how to set time and I actually got a prize believe for monotype keyboard work. I'd love to touch time when I was about 19 or 20. And that was that was useful. But the main thing was that I did a bit of mine and a bit of letterpress printing a bit of composition and the composer were mind and machine work. treadle threading a plant and practising and also knowing how to operate a guillotine and I was a little printer and I was actually gone for He was banned by various people. But it was terrific training.

Lefteris Heretakis: 5:08

And what happens when you tried to when he graduated? So what what happened? What happened?

Cal Swann: 5:12

Well, that was a problem because he last days, all able bodied 18 year olds had to go and do their military service. You could defer. Yeah, if you were on course, and I did that I would defer until I was 21, when I finished the programme, and but then I had to go into the Royal Air Force. But I was lucky again, because I got photography. And I'm, I, I'm not have a very good photographic training in the art school because I really started. But going into the RAF, they were very organised on training. And it wasn't just a sort of try this technique. We started with phonograms, the quality of light and fixing stuff. It was really a very basic photographic training, which of course, became so useful to me in the professional life because I wasn't a good illustrator. But I mean, I could draw, but I wasn't good illustrator, typefaces. But photography, and typography combined with quite a potent communication tool. So photography in the RAF was a bit of an interruption, a design career, and I would have liked if they just take me away for you, rather than two years of my life, but it wasn't entirely wasted. It was really good photographic. and

Lefteris Heretakis: 7:05

wonderful. And after after that,

Cal Swann: 7:09

well, I got a job with a printing firm. Now, printing firms these days, quite large, if they've got 10 or 12 people. The firm I joined, had 750 people. That's a large printing firm by anybody's standards. And it was a large why there are only eight or nine, comparatively a part of size printing firms in the UK at that time, included in places like a major stake in real. So it was a beam firm in Nottingham. And they were just starting a design group under an ex compositor named Vic Stapleton. And Vic was quite a fierce guy. Very different, very dreadful. And rather refined English gentleman was quite forceful. But nonetheless, he was very good. He gave his business and I learned a hell of a year before I was enticed back to an advertising agency in Leicester where I'd worked in one of the holiday periods. And they wanted a typo. And I went back to the typography with them and not that was quite interesting because I was taken on board by George Kent, who was a copywriter. And he ran a octava size magazine, which was about advertising and in the area, it was called ad lib. And each of the shine to some of my designer on a freehand to design the covers. And even the magazine itself. It was a small thing, but it was good because it got me designs which didn't have the commercial pressures of clients wanting this bigger and bigger. I enjoyed the time will be advertising even though I didn't do that much typography and advertising. Those days just fitted the text around whatever illustrations the art director some country but it was good. It was a good experience. And it enabled me to be back in Alaska, where Tom wanted me to do some part time teaching. And I did I did a couple of evenings teaching which got me interested. Of course in the teeth him. And he encouraged me to apply for a full time at Manchester College, which I applied for them to my surprise. So I started in Manchester when I was 25. I started at Manchester as an assistant lecturer at grade V was very poorly paid. And I'm also married and we just started a family as well. So it was tough time, financially. But it was great to be in education, and to be with some pretty experienced people. There was a typography stamp author who is no longer with us. But Steiner was head of the graphic design department, a very fine typography. And he was one of my idols and mentors in that first job. Along was a man named Don Warner, who died only a year ago. And Don was a very generous teacher who's more experienced on Iowa. They hadn't actually had done military service, but somehow he seemed to be much more experienced and knowledgeable and introduced me to a lot of philosophical books on design and so on. I really got into the Swiss stuff at that stage. And Donald was really generous in sharing his information with me. So I was lucky again. My wife was fond of telling me and everybody that I was born under a lucky star. I wouldn't tell you that. Most of the time, certainly professionally, I was lucky. So,

Lefteris Heretakis: 12:09

just so what happened during sort of what was what was his education, then those days like?

Cal Swann: 12:19

Well, it was it was before the equivalent of a BA in design. It was just a diploma from the colleges, but it was Manchester was quite a Go ahead place. And then they developed a lot of new courses. And they also had, what I was teaching in the typographic workshop, which was owed to me, a letterpress workshop was terrific. I had the great fortune to get a technical assistant, who manage that workshop, a guy named Tony Bennett, multiple singer. But Tony was really first laughing was terrific with the students. And I think we run a pretty good programme up in Manchester for often in touch, by the way with some of the students who often went on quite successful.

Lefteris Heretakis: 13:19

Do you remember anything of the curriculum of those days? Sorry, do you remember anything from the curriculum of those days?

Cal Swann: 13:26

Well, I was I was teaching typography to all the students who came into graphic design. So those who might finish up illustrators or advertising last year I introduced, typography was like a diagnostic. When students chose what they would do, in terms of where they were going into advertising, three dimensional design, whatever else. I ran the typography of up to a year programme up to the debate. And we had a good team of staff. And some very bright students, much of it was a frankly, good students. And I was doing a typography introduction programme, which was based on Mr. rudas. stuff in in Basel. And that's when I got introduced to the working party on typographic TV. And the W. P. Diddy was established by the HMI for art and design, a man named David Wright. And he put Michael Twyman who was Professor of typography at Reading University. So, we gathered together quite a lot of typographic teachers and the first conference in 90 Each 68 was at the centre of School crafts. And that was quite a turning point, I think, in the UK in terms of focusing much better teaching in the area of typographic design. And I was one of the presenters take care of the stuff I was doing at Manchester. I'll tell you, where I finished my presentation on what we'd be doing at Manchester with this glorious letterpress workshop. I just finished my presentation and there was a call for questions from the audience. And somewhere right in the middle of that quite big theatre. I've always said, Well, it's all very well for you in a nice, rich place like Manchester, but what do we do in places where we don't have glorious equipment? Now suggested by that, because I had never expected anything of that kind of nature. And before I could think of an answer, Peter Byrne Hill, who was head of graphic designer, stuffer gunked, up and shouted back, middle of audience. What are you talking about? What are you afraid of? I can teach typography with a stick in the sand. Which was, became very important. I carry that with me for the rest of my life, because I think what it did was to encapsulate that it didn't really matter what technology was going to be what was important, the principles of typography and letter spacing, word spacing, line spacing, spacing around the page, it's all and that you can teach without knowing what the technology is. And of course, from that letterpress workshop, and letterpress operation in industry, we've gone through those kind of photo typesetting. And now we've got the computer desktop, with software, like InDesign, and I've just discovered affinity. And it's magic, what we have on the desktop now. And from all of that happened within those 50 years of working my working life. It came from that very skillful, 500 year old craft of selling time. And currently in quite complicated print jobs. To now I can just conjure something up on on my computer to the local office, go and pick up the printer. If I don't print it on my own home printer, which is I don't even I ended up proving that we don't have the equipment. The professional question, but I mean, it's been a vast change in one lifetime from that technology, which they invented 500 years before sort of emerging of what we can do on the computer. So how do you

Lefteris Heretakis: 18:49

feel that has changed

Cal Swann: 18:52

in education? Well, how

Lefteris Heretakis: 18:55

do you feel that has shifted in education

Cal Swann: 18:59

had had its problems. And I remember in South Australia when I was fixing typography, first year students basically I had to ban design designs on a4 sheets of paper. Because the students just went to the nearest thing they could do on a computer and hand it in. And I deliberately set projects which we're making up companies falling paper and getting them to look at paper and print and what how it felt in their hands to attribute a three dimensional to the handle of read to get into the microphone.

Lefteris Heretakis: 19:52

So you said you wanted to talk about the working party on typographic teaching?

Cal Swann: 19:56

Oh yes, we'll do. It really brought together A lot of the best teachers in the UK. And we had conferences and working fathers and stuff, which enabled us to share our expertise and also share it with with others. And I think it made quite a difference. Michael Twyman was a fantastic man I used to live with. Michael was Professor of typography course, at Reading University. It was unique in the UK, when all of those were running graphic design courses in art schools until I went into the Polytechnic, but myClub develop typography within the university context, and they were looking at the theories of communication and how the language was the visible language was used. Raul lightmap, from teaching typography was a stickler. Michael was terrific. And what he was what we all went along, suggested in the report of the working party was you needed not to rely so much on the art school background, were one dealt with just one had to deal with the communication of information. And we also had to bring in the expertise of other people like the computing, because that was very important time, and how computing was affecting the design. marketing people, salespeople, sociology of mass media, students a very different kind of background to the normal art school training, we can convert it very much on just artistic checks for their own sake. And with very little application in the real world. So during the late 60s and 70s, it was a very important broadening of the concept of communication. We're lucky to have that started by David Rock the HMI, and guided principally by Michael Toma, plus some terrific work from Ernest Hawke, who was also a middle European designer become for Britain, and was keen to introduce a lot of the continental metric systems and so on. So it wasn't a very good place where we could have an exchange of information and sharing stuff with conferences. It was staff development of our significant time.

Lefteris Heretakis: 23:16

Your goals that you wanted to talk about writing, typing design designing.

Cal Swann: 23:23

I, I've met earnest and in impressed by him, he wanted to come and see what we were doing at Manchester. And I invited him getting paid to come into a project. And that was a very smart move on my part because I learned a lot more than students. What earnest introduced was concept of writing, comparison and the difference between writing, typing and printing also simply those days because that's, that's all we have. Right, right. Right to left. You could play with the strike on third bracket. But then you could do letterpress printing kind of three very much always revealed. I've been teaching online from a design issue in Australia. And I did three units of typography and development and thought, but I was still doing writing typing in sets, because what I always had to change to was writing or texting and printing off the off the computer and then designing our multiple autoscale for a mass communication, writing time and designing into a project where I got the students to write a letter to a personal friend about something that they felt very emotional about. And the students were required to write it in digital form as a text message, they were then asked to insert writing just to their personal friend, where they knew that friend of how to communicate with them, that they wouldn't have to write to a newspaper on the same kind of issue, and try and persuade a more general readership. And the last exercise then they didn't know what they were doing until they got at stake. And the last exercise was to design a ticker with the same message. So a lot of different forms of expression and technology with the same message and I have one bright student in South Australia at the University of South Australia, Peter Green and he brought him along to a personal friend and it was about suicide talks about searching and moving letter to persuade friend not to get involved. He then wrote a bright letter to the newspapers to try and put wider emphasis and then he was surprised when the last exercise out of this and he was the student and submit upon the last presentation of the T shirts and are surprised because he's new as good enables students and he came to me afterwards that I I didn't think you take my design why I do. And I feel Try me. And he said, Well, I I was thinking about my friend again. And I had a t shirt. But it wasn't a message on the front. It was a label on the back inside, which said, think well of yourself when you wear this t shirt. And I was always brilliant. I later went on to do a good career in design of course, but I thought that was a fantastic poetic concept getting going with the with that project because I thought if someone can come up with that idea, it's not a bad project

Lefteris Heretakis: 28:14

you also said something about letter to a friend email to newspaper t shirt. This is the one we're talking about. Right now. He said he said letter to a friend email to newspaper t shirt. This this is the one you talked about. Yeah, yes. Yeah. And the distance learning strategies. So but between Manchester what's what happened after Manchester?

Cal Swann: 28:37

Ah, well, I got a job as Head of Design at a graphic design at North stuffs falling which was really early down the road about 50. It was halfway between Manchester and Birmingham. And it was a new event in a small school that to be merged into two large technical colleges. In 1970, I was setting up a polytechnic throughout the United Kingdom. And I became head of graphics again right time because from the swinging 60s wonderful phrase of the swinging 60s Rich 60s We went into the 1970s with a reasonable amount of money. So expansion was very much the key to education at that time. And the bottom thickness wanted to explain like maths. The graphic design course I went to only had an intake of 15 students. That's about as small as you can get. And there was a moratorium on the number of students that you can have but the had to change after a few years. But what we developed in conjunction with the, the regional magisters expect a man named pick highly was to introduce a multidisciplinary design. So what happened was we put together the three dimensional design, ceramics, of course in Stoke on Trent. And the graphic design which we'd expanded into illustration, typography and audio video. We expanded it all into this multidisciplinary design course. And in the end, we were taking 170 students. So that was a that was quite a significant enlargement of bottom design in we've worked on it think in a lot of places with a polytechnic there's a lot of expansion. And I was four, I moved around quite a lot in the early stages. And in Stoke on Trent, I was there for 11 years as head of the school of design of broken design. And we was also where I lived for quite a while it was all quite exciting myself but I felt I needed something new and a new challenge. And when the most of head of designer some modern school in London came off I applied for that and again surprised myself by getting it and that was really quite a step up from Stoke on Trent that might nobody wants you to know Socotra not really accepting Potter's do of course, ceramics people. But Trent as a as a design, graphic design centre was not only not on the map, Martin School of Art in central London is a different kettle of fish altogether. But I found that the newspapers and campaign papers were coming to me just comment on whatever is happening. And I'll say the same thing, but I'm saying when I was having my stuff on, but suddenly it was a London voice and got some publicity. It's very London centric. But it was interesting and it was great. I love to be in Oregon. It was a different world. It was amazing, really. The sort of things that happened because it was London and it was on Hong Kong on a lawmaker in Covent Garden. We had this on the ground floor of this old 1920s warehouse. There was a nice window shop window where a technician who's to hang should work. And we because of a guy named Richard dowsed, who was very good longtime member of Martin Richard had introduced computer graphics. And the students were printing stuff out on these long paper. And some guys from Macintosh Apple machines saw this stuff came and said would you like half a dozen Macintoshes to play play with? We'd love to see what they do with it. Well, you know Woodway it was quite something to be in the middle of lunch where that kind of thing could happen. It would never happen in Stoke on track. Absolutely.

Lefteris Heretakis: 34:31

So you went to become head of department.

Cal Swann: 34:37

And then when I was head of some mountains for a while and we had this terrible thing of course courses with the Central School. Now it wasn't terrible. Being Central School, but trying to totally reorganise the day font ethos of teaching approaches in two different school and Central School, we've been there for young artists. And we were challenged with having to reduce courses in central London. And what they what the London Authority decided to do was to combine courses rather than lose. So our situation was that we would have to combine the two graphic design courses at Central School and St Maarten. And also combine them to find out that way we would reduce to courses.

Lefteris Heretakis: 35:52

And why would why were these two courses combined?

Cal Swann: 35:57

The national advisory body had said that we must reduce forces in London, there were too many. And it was really it was under structure and it was a government structure basically. So London instead of mainly cleansing, Camberwell and Charter School, which they do. From buying courses, we got rid, of course, name and number. But we were left with the problem of having to combine two different graphic design courses, two heads of department, two different stuff teams. And we had to do it within a year. Because if we didn't do it and get it organised, the CDA was not going to recognise and we will not be taking any students. But there will be quite a promo of stuff for dominance ism, chaos. And we have this incredible trying to align two different courses and one launch course. Eventually, I was put in charge of the course later of the new course. We did actually get approval. Well, okay. I've been very crafting and taking advantage of the new Department of Educational science ruling wondered to ensure the teaching staff were better qualified, you know, most of us like I've only had a National Diploma, which was nothing really compared to the degrees that were handed out. It was a little bit of amusement that most of us have already had a National Diploma. Now organising courses which were included in masters of design, it was very strange. So what the Department of Education sites are offering grants for staff to up their qualifications, I was, by that time, very interested in typography with language. And so I had arranged with a sympathetic London Education Authority inspector more than merged arrangement. If we were successful in getting this course approved. Then I would bother off to a year on an MA in linguistics at Lancaster University, which actually was terrific, I loved it. It was a challenge. And it was very different, the academic study, but it was perfect because I just what I wanted the professor of linguistics in Lancaster, Chris Conlon and he was a very widely Catholic kind of linguist. And he's going to me when I went for interview was how interesting to have a visual artists in our midst. This is going to be very challenging. Yes. It was actually it was lovely and And I got on very well with with Chris Gardner who went incidentally to Australia as head of the linguistics department in Macquarie University. And we would meet up later on in Australia. But the year fantastic and university doing linguistics was just what I want it because it gave me a foundation and the theoretical framework of how we communicate with a language and seen the visible language as part of the entire run of language. It was a lot.

Lefteris Heretakis: 40:43

So you did the Masters, and then

Cal Swann: 40:46

well, then I was interested in getting out of London, what you believe. I applied for what I was, I was appointed eventually as the Dean of the Faculty of our design, in livable, livable Polytechnic, which was third or fourth largest authentic in the country at the time. But he was in dire straits into the hands of battle with Barbara. And the leader of local council was Derek, Derek red, who'd been on brinkmanship with the budget for Liverpool, the opera. And I'm when I was appointed, as head of graphic designer at Liverpool. I had the usual bundle of papers that conditions of first and last one was saying that we're making everyone redundant from December I was given a job offered a job and don't be redundant. But everybody was being made redundant. Because they sorted out the budget eventually was sorted. And of course, we did start and I became Dean of the Faculty of Design. And that was my last job before I went to Australia.

Lefteris Heretakis: 42:32

Why did you go to Australia?

Cal Swann: 42:34

Well, well, yes, I'd always wanted to go. What actually started out that first teaching job in Manchester, there was a guy who was on the staff very nice chap who'd been teaching in New Zealand. And I thought what a better climate another part of the world wasn't so keen on Australia at the time because it seemed to be a rather cool place to rock not not not sorry. They will, they could be very rude. I thought New Zealand might be good, but nothing happened when I did write to those places for jobs. But I got the usual response to very interesting your application. We don't have any vacancies at the moment. So I eventually gave up going to go to New Zealand. By that time, Australia changed. Aesop's about the films coming out of Australia and the late stone age. And I got interested in in Australia, and a friend of mine, Bob Smith have been in Australia for some years. And I love to watch her for years. Liverpool, Liverpool. I wanted to see some of the world for myself. And I persuaded the HMI from the local area to support an application for me to go abroad and do electrical with my typography and linguistic approach. Which did either didn't matter getting the funding for it But I did. I do, like organise, so I'm gonna go anyway. So I went to Hong Kong. And then down to where I stayed with Chris Conklin, the professor before University, and I did a little tour, we got a range, we're doing basically the same nature, different places. But I ended up in Adelaide, where the school of design had a board would be the head of school. And he got back to the UK for a period of time. And so there was a vacancy for that. And eventually got, it seemed like a good opportunity. I was fed up of nowhere, Sasha, who rules the roost and changing education into the American like a profit company, rather than education. And I didn't like where that was going. And Australia certainly did. And we went, Oh, was little, our budget for Operation really very small, mean, very difficult to operate on. I'm in touch with electricity in charge of that area, where I was reminded me lately, they used to send students out to around the city, looking for fabric, maybe television, with copper tubing, material. It was a desperate situation for a normal financing and funding for an education programme. So it was very tough, local, I think, the worst and other places but not as bad as it wasn't a good situation to be an Aquarian Head of School. And then the dean of faculty for over 20 years. I hadn't got the phrase of burnout at that time. But it was getting serious that I needed to have a break from from that. I had actually decided to take early retirement. And I worked out the design to go in retirement and taught on a contract basis. I would obviously draw a salary that was still livable, and I would be able to exist without the worries of being the dean of whole faculty 500 students start to enjoy the teaching and living again. So I I took early retirement from the UK. But I didn't know that the Head of School in South Australia, Adelaide was going as well. So it was just fine. I hadn't actually got the job when I return, but it did come up eventually. So I moved to Australia. I spent about seven years in Adelaide, and they were good. And I wanted to study very much. The climate of course was terrific. It was our first go the eating and drinking on the pavement cafes which I'm sure you're familiar with. And then John came up in curtain person was the friendly front which I went for larger because it was it would be nice to see another part it was a hell of a long way from LA. So that was it. I would I retired from Kurt in the year 2001 Which was 50 years exactly. After I started art school. Much more I've written about him in the autographic the autobiography of calm

Lefteris Heretakis: 50:00

Tell us tell us about your book. Well, it's

Cal Swann: 50:05

it's square format 24 centimetres square. And because of the size, it's a bit expensive, which I'm sorry about, but the size was just so beautiful. But it just record of those 50 years, all the teaching appointments, who I worked with the problems, the successes, the failures. And there were a couple of very big failures. But it's all in the almost total book. And his worry is illustrated with the graphic work, which I'm because I was doing graphic design. For all that time, I thought I'd move reasonably well. With the different trends of graphics. I never said any trends. And I never considered myself to be anything other than a journeyman designer. Nevertheless, the the word represents a kind of mainstream sort of history. visual graphic design spread throughout the book as well. I just thought it was worth doing. I started out as something I was going to do for my kids. Actually, my kids haven't really well. I think they'll probably get more resilient when it when they're a little older. But it was written with them in mind. And then when it was forming much better, as well. As visual thing. I decided that I would separate books, one would be more of a family thing with family history and stuff. I would bet the square foot one was a informal generator designed. Just out now.

Lefteris Heretakis: 52:24

Oh, fantastic. So there are two versions of your book. Sorry, there are two versions of your book.

Cal Swann: 52:30

Yes, well, there's only one which is a different size, it's 20 centimetres by 25. Before and then that makes it a whole lot cheaper to produce. And I've just produced a few of those for the family as well. Right, but like eight or 10 copies, which I've got a little perfect binder as well. So this is the magic of the computer, and the printing process. It's very easy to produce your book now. Yes, yes.

Lefteris Heretakis: 53:20

So from all your career, if you could create the ideal school for graphics, what would you do? As far as graphics? The idea, the perfect one, if there was no limitations, if there were no limitations? How would you create the ideal school?

Cal Swann: 53:39

That's a good question. Because you know what? I've said in the book, that if I come back, the problem was removed from the Art School of the kind that I was trained and very happy to where you work alongside a group of us. But you see each other's work, you share what's going on. And you have to expose yourself to these criticisms. So it's very much a social and a group activity. It wasn't my day. Obviously, for all that. When I was teaching in Manchester, for instance, it was still that sort of approach. But we ran out of the stage where students are my two stepdaughters have both been good individual and they've taken university courses where they just pop in for free lecture. sometimes don't even pop in for the length of stay can take it, take them online, they take the exercise and do them individually in their own cell and submit it online. And with a bit of luck, get feedback from the sheriff is also online. But I think it misses an awful lot of the social stimulation of working on designs and seeing what else is happening. extra stimulation from that kind of thing. And I think that's a sad thing. So, in the introduction to the book, in answer to your question, what would I do? I would start an article very much like the one that I started. Because a designer friend of mine, who is Vietnamese, Vietnamese boat, refugee, to Australia, way back in Hong Chi Hyung did a lot of our jobs. When he first came in, he followed his art and went to do art school, became a designer and finished up teaching at Elektra. Curtin University, and he now has a PhD. But he's, and he tells me that I will come back in 50 to 100 years time. He's convinced about but I have just said, Well, yes, if I do, I'm gonna start on an article just fine alignment.

Lefteris Heretakis: 56:54

So what what did you apply the principles in your distance learning in May? And in designing online?

Cal Swann: 57:04

How did you bridge that?

Lefteris Heretakis: 57:07

Sorry, how did you bridge your when you were teaching at a distance learning? Only Master's in design online? So What strategies did you use from from your art school?

Cal Swann: 57:19

Well, that is difficult, because the students and I got interested in distance learning when I was at Adelaide, the University of South Australia, they have a different system in Australia to the UK system, UK have the Open University and they run practically all of the distance courses that you can study off campus in Australia, each of the major cities like Brisbane and lead Sydney and so on. One institution is generally the one that provides distance education courses. Now in South Australia, they had a very good use. It was superb. And he had some terrific people about it, because the University of South Australia was a combination of COVID College of advanced education, which was a teacher training college. There were some very good education there, when they started up the distance education which were basically correspondence course. And those early days they got very good at it, the strategy of how you approach with that long distance lonely person sitting in their own game and material through the post was quite a challenge. When I went to, I actually sold the first ma postgraduate design course through that method, basically with with books, readings, tape, recordings, you know, long works with the University of South Australia when I went to Perth, part of their attraction to me was that don't have that kind of experience in Perth is the most isolated city on the planet. So the distance learning had to be a major development for and they'd already got lots of courses gone away, but of course, the situation have changed because it was 1996. The internet was developing Yeah, so we concentrated on putting this correspondence into a format that could be delivered through the internet. And I didn't find that kind of thing as attractive as a challenge. Most of my colleagues didn't want to get interested because they thought you couldn't achieve design in the classroom and you stood up. And I didn't know how to do it. When we, when we started, the head of the Distance Education Centre, Bruce was always told that there was no subject in the world that could not be taught by distance learning. When He quoted the land from South Africa became the president of South Africa. He thought he was taught by distance learning to become a lawyer, and virtually everything he knew, was through his imprisonment.

Lefteris Heretakis: 1:01:24

Nelson Mandela. Yeah, that's right.

Cal Swann: 1:01:27

He was educated through distance learning techniques. So it was a challenge. And I found that while of course it was for both. And that was a good place to start. Because you don't have to teach the basics. These people have got a degree, they've probably got, the students were qualified, and they had some experience. So it was a different position. And most of the Masters was much more theoretical. It was it was easier in that respect. And I do think it's a problem to teach distance education. to students who don't know anything starting up, I did expect that with the typography changing, which I did, for the last two years, when I retired in 2001, I, we did a tour of Australia, four wheel drive. And then I went live in Denmark for two or three years. When I came back to Australia, I started doing the online teaching, which I only gave up in 2019. So, obviously, it is difficult and one has to adapt the way you want your students are not going to be able to sit in front of you, and something you can do in five or 10 minutes. With a student you can't do and that's a planning to construct it in a different way.

Lefteris Heretakis: 1:03:38

So how did you What did you change?

Cal Swann: 1:03:43

Well, I still use the the writing, typing and printing model not saying the word original one because we've moved on to text messages and email and a T shirt is DotAsia the situation was easier to do. And I also did I got them to work with materials again. Using the concertina fold tiny book which they had to produce and present as a photograph both InDesign PDF but also photograph the object so we could we could assess it in the round. So yes, we don't want to have to do it with a second hand use of photography and digital format not only thing I'm sorry, it wasn't so easy.

Lefteris Heretakis: 1:05:03

Yes, of course, of course, of course. What would be the principles of your new school? What principles would you would you have in your in the school that you will make?

Cal Swann: 1:05:18

I think it would be around teaching typography with a stick, and I think it would be still hands on with drawing and typography and a lot of theoretical input on language and video, communication, really graphic images. It would be a lot more theoretical and cerebral. But I would still except to construct in a way that would have students who are getting their hands wet with meetings?

Lefteris Heretakis: 1:06:13

And who would be the people that would influence you, the designers or the educators that would influence you?

Cal Swann: 1:06:20

Oh, I think so many? So many. I come to know, our pleasure quite well. Yeah. I just had some I visited him in his studio, and he was he was a gentleman. But he had a vision, and an insight into how I think, Alan Fletcher one would be a person I would look up to. But I think my friend in Germany, Allah for a year younger than me. He's now the oldest friend. I have. I'm afraid many others have gone by the wayside. But he's the one who causes etc. and typography. And I've used a short piece that he wrote to me on email. And I've closed my book with his his thoughts about design? Because I think he is really very smart. And he put design in through the context of something which we do. It's ephemeral, it's gone. And when our careers are finished, you know it's not a scientific discipline. But I thought he was representative about the way designers IV conflict miombo his articulation

Lefteris Heretakis: 1:08:34

any advice you'd like to leave us with for students and for designers and for teachers? What will be your

Cal Swann: 1:08:40

advice? That's a tough one. You can do every effort. I mean, I consider designers fairly far by night thing. But even if you do think of it as an ephemeral and not so very important measure when I went to the University of South Australia, the School of Design now was very, very difficult and very good quality of students. The graduates were really superb. But all the staff thought design was the most important thing in the world. And when I pointed out the building next door, was the nursing building, that they actually do deal with more important things like life and death. I was almost limited by the design. This was sacrilege. So I've got a sort of, I think, a healthy respect or disrespect for design, but at the same time to do anything. You just got to put the whole effort into I found now I've got to put every thought every fibre of my being, even if it's only a concert advertisement for the local school school you have to work very hard. And the more you know about communication the better chance to call for finding the right kind of idea but you've also got to have the hands on experiment, the artistic stuff. It's a multi tasking kind of activity. As always thank you so

Lefteris Heretakis: 1:10:52

much for this talk. And then we'll be it will be that of course for everything else. Thank you.

Cal Swann: 1:10:59

Well, thank you for being interested to meet you. Okay, we are