by Associate Professor Scott Bakal

My colleague Elizabeth Resnick who is Professor Emeritus in MassArt’s Graphic Design department as well as an author and designer and I co-teach a travel course. The course is called Crossing the Pond: Exploring Communication Design in London and Dublin. We take graphic design and illustration students (usually 50/50) to the UK and Ireland for about 17 days for museum and studio visits. During these visits the students see lectures from some of the most prolific and world renown designers and illustrators in the region. The focus of the course being; what are the differences and similarities between the U.S. and other countries in their use of design and illustration as well as experiencing life in these two countries.

The last trip we held was in the Spring of 2016 and this Fall, we will begin the process of organizing the next UK trip for the Spring of 2019. For this upcoming trip, we will be centering the trip exclusively in the UK but spending time in three cities – London, Cambridge and Leeds.

During a previous course trip, Elizabeth and I met with Hans Dieter Reichert, Publisher of Baseline.

The magazine has an education section and we discussed how are trip can be formulated into a story. After we got through the trip, Elizabeth and I spent a few weeks writing the article and sent it in and am excited to announce that the current issue with our students and trip concept and details are live!

You can download the full article PDF here.

It is a wonderful trip and highly curated experience for the students. We hit the ground running from the very day we land. Often visiting two to three studios a day as well as cultural visits such as the V&A Museum in London, Chester Beatty Gallery in Dublin. We also purchase tickets to plays running at the time so they have cultural experiences outside of only graphic design and illustration and there is always one day in each country that the students can explore the country on their own.

Highlights for the trips include visiting Pentagram UK and a talk from brilliant designer Harry Pearce; visiting St. Bride’s and seeing original sketches for Gill Sans, pages from the Book of the Dead and a complete first book printed in English from the 1400’s; visiting Annie Atkins studio in Dublin (she creates the graphics for TV shows and movies such as the Grand Budpest Hotel, The Tudors and others and all of the newspapers, signage, etc. for the sets. Further, while in Dublin, the students saw lectures from illustrators Steve Simpson, Alan Clarke and Sarah Bowie which were wonderful. After the lectures, the artists had a meet-up with the Irish Illustrators Guild and invited all of the students to a local pub to top off the rest of the evening.

This is only to list a fraction of the itinerary.

I am incredibly proud and honored to work with Elizabeth on this course and hope to expand it in the near future. My goal is to have a course like this run every year. I am very thrilled that I have the ability through MassArt to give students once-in-a-lifetime experiences traveling abroad. In many cases, not only is it students first trip outside of New England, but out of the country.

We look forward to students coming to the information sessions next Fall! Spread the word!

Baseline Article: You can download the full article PDF here.