GD50: GraphicsRCA: Fifty Years was, in part, an attempt by staff and students working on the exhibition to try and articulate the ‘RCA-ness’ of the College. Having been a student of the programme in the 1980s, and then in your role as Deputy Head of Visual Communication, what do you understand this ‘RCA-ness’ to be?
Jeff Willis: That’s a tricky one. So, where does RCA-ness come from and what does it mean? RCA-ness makes you feel like you are only 20 minutes away from a revolution. It’s said you graduate with an RCA gloss, implying that we face the world with a detectable, confident attitude made up of variable measures of self-belief, creative arrogance, empathy, sensitivity and humour. Ask any client who’s not read the label carefully enough, and they’ll agree that RCA-ness should come with a warning that screams ‘independence’. Once you’ve reassured yourself that you are worthy of being a member of this group of RCA people, you find RCA- ness is to be consumed at reasonable prices every night in the ArtBar. Commitment to study and hard work brings peer recognition and cements lasting friendships – sometimes marriage, more often than not business partnerships. RCA-ness is not a club badge, it’s a world-wide web, or possibly some kind of infection.
GD50: Can you compare your own experience as a student with what you are currently seeing in students’ aspirations and project outcomes? What remains the same and what has changed?
Jeff Willis: When you look beneath the surface, very little that’s uniquely ‘RCA’ has changed over the years. It’s still about the hand, the heart and the mind. Certainly, what we look for in potential students hasn’t changed. My own interview was very similar to the interviews we conduct today. What has changed is that our students now struggle more than we did financially. Some come to us consumed with having to be measured and managed, given structure and learning outcomes specific to a particular creative challenge. This is something that we have had to address, and it has made us aware we have to articulate the RCA learning process. Looking back, I think our current students are smarter than we were: they work harder than we did, and they have much higher expectations of the College. At the RCA, and certainly in Visual Communication, the students themselves are the generators of the learning experience. I wasn’t ‘taught’ much (except perspective drawing) but I really did learn a huge amount about people, ideas and process. As a student I felt staff respected me as an adult – I hope this perception still prevails. For me, and I think to most students, the RCA is about being here – the here and now – its not the degree awarded at the end, nor is it tradition, reputation or history. Looking back, I have to say – it wasn’t perfect, I had to deal with contradiction, confusion, frustration, annoyance and disappointment. I recently discovered that in common with other graduates I share a similar reoccurring dream; one night in mid-July I awake sweating because I am facing a Final Show without enough work. I’m still infected.
GD50: How do you see the future of graphic design moving on over the next 50 years?
Jeff Willis: I think the future of graphic design is entwined in its past, and in the emerging endless possibilities for collaboration. Graphic design as a subject has constantly adapted to changing circumstances, transient influences and technological developments. It’s certainly become much broader and has changed to embrace new attitudes and needs. Graphic designers, however, remain the same inquisitive people who want to make things better and believe we can do better than those who went before us. I think we have now established a strong theoretical, intellectual and philosophical position. I also think, like many of our students, that graphic design exists as an intellectual proposition informed by its past and anticipating the future. I have daily conversations that are outcomes of graphic design thinking – graphic design can and does exist without the artefact as an outcome.
GD50: What advice would you give to incoming students on MA Visual Communication?
Jeff Willis: Be generous, be open-minded, be fearless and have fun. And always be prepared for revolution!
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Jeff Willis
Senior Tutor in Graphic Design
Deputy Head of Visual Communication
Born in 1956 in Newcastle upon Tyne, Jeff Willis studied graphic design at Norwich School of Art and at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1984 when he joined Minale Tattersfield and Partners as a senior designer. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Art, and Deputy Head of the Visual Communication programme at the Royal College of Art in London with teaching responsibilities as the Senior Course Tutor in Graphic Design. He remains active as a graphic designer, having formed a design partnership in 1990 with his wife who graduated with him from the RCA in 1984. Perks Willis Design operates as a design consultancy to cultural institutions, corporate clients and educational establishments. He is a member of Design and Art Direction, the International Society of Typographic Designers, a member of the Sign Design Society and a member of the Higher Education Academy.
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GraphicsRCA: Fifty Years is open to the public:
5 November – 22 December 2014, 10am – 5.30pm daily
Upper Gulbenkian Gallery, Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London SW7 2EU
Admission free
An accompanying book GraphicsRCA: Fifty Years and Beyond edited by Teal Triggs, Adrian Shaughnessy and Anna Gerber, is now on sale: listed here.