George Dutton

RCA2020 is the visual identity and design of this online platform, designed and developed in conjunction with two other MA Visual Communication students; Philip Veech and Sean Steed.

Our primary aim was to capture the diversity, creativity and hybridity of the RCA’s community in 2020 and to express this through the usual components that promote and support a physical degree show. Although our initial undertaking was to carry out cross-college student workshops to allow for inclusivity in the designs, the unprecedented circumstances of COVID-19 led to an abrupt end to this exercise and indeed to any physical degree shows, resulting in a rethinking of the original design approach to work instead as an online platform. Despite this, our desire to create a visually diverse identity representative of the student body remained core to the ongoing project.

The end result is the development of four stylistically distinct type families incorporating differing motion behaviours representing each of the four schools within the RCA – Architecture, Arts and Humanities, Communication and Design. The platform itself maintains aspects of the modularity used within the visual identity whilst the overall look of the graphic design content is downplayed to allow the students’ work to be the main focus of the platform.

As previously stated, our primary aim was to capture the diversity, creativity and hybridity of the RCA’s community in 2020. This was intended to be achieved by organising a series of cross-college student workshops to create an identity that was inclusive and collaborative, capturing a snapshot of the RCA in 2020 and representing the diversity, creativity and hybridity of its community.

Through conducted interviews with students, the general consensus was that the analogue process remained vital to many practices, as draftsmanship is inherent to all creative processes through the coining of ideas. Therefore, we held workshops where students could draw “2”s and “0”s generating an extensive archive of student submissions, which would inform the final outcome.

These “2” and “0”s were created using a set of predetermined stencils containing a series of modular shapes. This modular toolkit allowed for the outcomes to carry consistency in visual language, whilst showcasing a variation and individuality across the various departments and students.

The unprecedented circumstances of a global pandemic led to the abrupt ending of these cross-college workshops and the physical shows forcing us to rethink, question and adapt the concept for a purely digital environment. Despite this, our ethos to create a visually diverse identity that attempts to represent a multitude of different practices remained core to the project. However, from the workshops we managed to hold between February and early March, we were still able to analyse and highlight interesting aspects of the students’ submissions that could still be extrapolated and expanded into typographic elements to create the four stylistically distinct type families.

The Work-in-Progress Show sought to reflect the undeveloped nature of the show, by displaying the initial loose experiments of the “2”s and “0”s across all three campuses (Kensington, Battersea and White City). The visual identity showcased the process behind their generation, whilst acting as a soft release to the final show.

This publication focuses on the architectural shortcomings and media representation of public housing within the UK with particular emphasis on Robin Hood Gardens in East London and how political rhetoric, film and television promote the common negative stereotypes of such places we see today.

Housing has become a national obsession; it is the one socio-political issue that concerns all ages in all walks of life. It defines our place in the world and society. Ultimately when we discuss our housing and wealth ‘what we are talking about is our freedom.’ We become less free for fear of the insecurity, of arbitrary evictions, of our worth, of the stigma, of our future. This affects everyone; just the degree of its impact or importance is relative, with the ‘sparse mosaic of lights illuminating London’s new high-rises' revealing the true narrative, housing has become one of the most important commodities in Britain, 'a fundamental need for all has become a goldmine for a few.’

Concrete Gold is a condensed sans serif display typeface inspired by Modernist architecture, particularly Brutalism. The face was drawn in a strict geometric grid maintaining a uniformity to its weight throughout, it contrasts rounded outer corners with sharper inner counters to emphasise its brutality. It is tall and dense minimising negative space increasing its headline impact.

Otherwhere is an ongoing series of video essays that explores my own identity through the of medium hauntological film, whilst exploring themes of third culture kids, orientalism, duality and translation.

The video essays are entirely built from found footage evoking the ‘past inside the present’ creating a shared sense of nostalgia. All the found footage of Hong Kong was captured through the lens of either Western media or tourists, a representation of the somewhat neither/nor world that I exist in, neither a local nor a foreigner.

Otherwhere has taken the form of a performance lecture, which was showcased as dual screen film with a live narration. It is now in the process of forming a larger series of video essays, which will exist online.