Undergraduate Graphic Design courses in the UK receive more applications than places on the course. Therefore your portfolio must show your enthusiasm for learning Graphic Design, and represent who you are as a creative and thinking individual. Within my undergraduate teaching, I have reviewed hundreds of portfolios; some have confused me yet others have made me want to have that student on the course! I can help you look at your current portfolio (or one you have just started), and provide structured advice on forming a portfolio that positively supports your application for an undergraduate graphic design course. I can offer guidance on: • What to include, and exclude, from your portfolio — we can review your current projects. • Representing the depth of creative investigation, and processes, behind your project work. • Including other forms of creative practice that may support your application. • Presenting your work through layout design and the use of writing/captioning. I can look at the course specification for the BA you are applying for and give specific advice accordingly. If you are expecting a face-to-face or online interview, I can share some of my experiences and offer advice on preparing yourself for what you may be asked.

We can learn a lot about typography by looking closely at good typography. Through looking you can identify what makes good typography work, and what elements contribute to a solid typographic 'system'. In this session, I will show you where to find excellent documents from the typography industry and share what you can learn from analysing these examples. Through this process of looking, you will learn to evaluate your typography and improve your work. You will look into the purposes of typographic elements (display titles, headings, reading text, detail type etc), and begin to understand how to control these elements to make good typographic design choices. The session can be tailored to your specific needs — whether you are at an intermediate or further level. When the opportunity arises, I can demonstrate how to implement certain typographic approaches in InDesign or Affinity Publisher. The session is 90 minutes — we will need this time for the session to be meaningful to you, and it will include a small starter presentation by myself to set the context for the remainder of the session. I'm sure that within this session several other areas relating to typography will emerge — further engaging you with a rich and deep field within design.