Chapter 5: Reading University

Sept 2000 - Sept 2004

Arriving at the new-build Bulmershe halls, I unloaded my stuff & headed up towards the third floor corridor. After saying goodbye to the folks, I was quickly out on the hunt to make new friends. Apart from a guy called Andy, I didn’t really bond with the other guys in my corridor on the first night down at the campus bar (JCR), but we both soon noticed another bunch of cool kids playing pool. They lived on the 4th floor of our building. We ended up hanging out in their top-floor kitchen from then on. Our halls were on a teacher-training & drama campus near Earley, which was about 20mins walk from the central campus where all my lectures were.

We did a lot of tea-drinking, figuring out how to cook, film-watching as well as nights out. There were a few crazy characters in both our corridors, but I think these slightly eccentric types only helped the rest of us bond. I can see now how being thrown out of your comfortable family home, into a halls with no boundaries can perhaps overwhelm some. I remember there was a guy in my corridor, and I don’t think he lasted more than a week before leaving. However I was quite enjoying the new found independence!

At Reading, year one was all about flexible course options - I’d initially signed up and assumed I’d continue to do English and/or Art, but as a bonus I had a third option of Typography & Graphic Communication. I’d never seriously considered it before, but it was only from browsing the prospectus that something about designing cereal packets caught my eye, and I was like hell yeah I could get into that…

I went through a brief phase in the first year of Uni feeling a little homesick, as if the fun of childhood was now behind me. I discovered eBay at this point - and got hold of a Nintendo SNES and loads of games, followed by a whole heap of Thundercats VHS - comforting nostalgia I guess…

The Dept of Typography & Graphic Communication, Reading University

It quickly became clear as we progressed through the first year, that I was out of my depth with English at degree level. And with Art - there was no structure to the course. The think the fact that I hadn’t done a foundation year didn’t help either. I wasn’t too inspired by the tutor we had either, who barely seemed to be around. The only project I can remember from Art was to explore the theme of ‘disgust’ - I ended up throwing bacon on my bathroom wall, and visited a butcher’s shop to take photos. I also remember making some pretty dire collage/sculptures when we paired up, and none of us really enjoyed doing it. I think I only felt comfortable when I briefly started painting again, but thankfully on the other course I’d found (Typography) - I was still able to express my inner creative - and this was clear when you looked at how many times I tried to use my own visual art instead of using stock images for example.

I was liking this new Typography unit - all the tutors and staff were super friendly, with a few very eccentric characters! There was clear structure, deadlines and plenty of new stuff to learn. We started getting some early intro lessons into using computers - I was a total novice at this point. We also did a module in photography & development which I also enjoyed - especially working in the darkroom and waiting to see what emerged within the chemicals. I paired up again on this photography project with friend Rachel - and ended up in some kind of fake hostage/interrogation scenario shoot, was fun to make anyway!

By the beginning of year two, I had my very first Apple laptop - a white 13” iBook! This seemed like a real big deal for me, but we obviously we take computers for granted now. Until that point, I enjoyed life enough without any computers, there wasn’t even smartphones back then! As I progressed through the next year of project-work, I was quickly either teaching myself how to use the software or picking up tips from other students on how to use all these new design programmes - which mostly consisted of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. It was overwhelming at first but it’s funny how quickly we learn & adapt.

Book jackets for University year 2 practical project and Dorling Kindersley work experience designs

I can’t remember exactly how I found out about the student newspaper, I think I must have been browsing around the student union one day, and been reading some leaflets about various clubs and groups. I saw the free student paper called Spark & found out about the next meeting! I went along to the meet-up and discovered there was a regular music section, with opportunities to do reviews of new music or live concerts, and you’d get to keep the music or attend free gigs - I jumped on this! I think I ended up writing for at least a couple of years.

More often I’d be going into London or Oxford for the better shows - these either being free review shows for the Spark University newspaper, or off my own back. Highlights included Weezer + Jimmy Eat World and Sonic Youth at Shepherds Bush, Radiohead at Earls Court, Hot Water Music and The Icarus Line at the Garage, The Vines at Electric Ballroom, My Morning Jacket at London Astoria, Chicks on Speed, Har Mar Superstar, and Sleepy Jackson at Zodiac, Oxford, Queens of the Stone Age at Brixton Academy, Deftones at London Docklands, and finally DJ Shadow and The White Stripes in Bristol. I also dabbled in some interviewing - though can’t say I was particularly good at it. I definitely interviewed smaller punk rock bands Icarus Line & Hot Water Music - but I just found an old script I’d prepped for The Darkness, but that must have fallen through as don’t remember meeting them.

I was still really into my music as always - there was indie record shop I’d frequent often for new CDs, as well as buying the odd CD from pop-up sellers who appeared now and again in the central campus student union. I was also attending loads and loads of live gigs - Reading itself wasn’t really on the circuit for live music, however I remember Supergrass, Reef, Wheatus, DJ Yoda and The Darkness definitely passed through our Student Union.

As we progressed through year one, I’d worked out the friends from halls I was going to live with - Andy, Mike, Tim, Su and Kate. We had a 6-person group and our first student house was on a very busy road, just off motorway, but on the plus side I got a huge bedroom. The negatives were the tiny kitchen, lack of a good lounge and the fact that it wasn’t particularly secure, as we had a few random strangers wandering in a couple times, but luckily they were scared off by us being in at the time! I’ll always remember sitting in my friend Su’s room one day, we had our cowboy landlord around fixing something, when the news came up about the Twin Towers - another strange moment where you always remember exactly where you were at the point the news broke.

In the second year of Uni I also started part-time work, including shifts in the student union bars. I was able to pick the nights/shifts I wanted, so went for quieter day-time slots, rather than the mental Wednesday & Friday peaks! I also later in the year took a job in a vintage clothes shop - this was quite fun just to build up my personal collection, as I could get first dibs on all the new stock from America that came in!

Over the summer of the second year, I think I stayed around Reading more, as not everyone left - and I had started another job, but it was in a call-centre. Myself, and housemates Andy & Mike all got the same job - it was waiting for people to call us who were over 65, and wanted a cheaper deal on their energy bills. So we just gave them information, and signed them up if they wanted to go ahead. But it was a fairly relaxed job, we started doing some full-time hours over summer, but then once Uni started again, we mostly did evening shifts between 5-8pm, the call volumes had also dropped by this point but we got double our hourly rate too, so we felt super rich!

This lead to what I now realise was addiction to Indian takeaway. I’d never really had Indian food properly before, but we’d got a flyer through at our house, so tried them one day. It was amazing, think at the peak, we had 3 sessions in one week! I’ll never forget the first Indian takeaway I had - I didn’t realise the portion sizes, so when mine arrived, I got stuck in, it was obviously so delicious that I didn’t really stop eating, and later on I ended up being sick from eating too much! I can’t remember this ever happening before, and it’s never happened again since! Despite that we kept going back perhaps once or twice a month after things calmed down, but the business suddenly disappeared after a year or so. Maybe for the best…

Year 2 - Artist book series design and Year 4 - Eye Test awareness concept

Back in the Typography dept, we had our first field trip aboard in year 2 - we headed over on a coach via the ferry to Amsterdam - and from there visited Ghent, The Hague and Antwerp too. We visited print-based museums to see the Gutenberg Bible, Poster designs at the Rijks Museum as well as studying signage at Amsterdam airport! We also had time to explore Amsterdam as tourists, it was my first visit there and I loved the cobble streets, shops and cafes. The influence of design was everywhere - from the architecture, to signage, bicycles, trams, food & drink, to the people themselves and their fashion.

Year three - I decided to change my living arrangements - not that I’d fallen out with anyone, I just thought living with a smaller group might be better, get to know some new people and I quite liked the new house we found. I stayed good friends with my previous housemates and we visited each other regularly - but now I was living with my course mate James, plus Vanya & Sarah. Sarah I knew from halls & Art.

Year 3 - Typeface design & Magazine design practical project

My course workload started to increase with more theory & history lectures and the complexity of the practical design projects. But I was really enjoying the course, and took a more personalised hand-drawn approach as often as I could - for example we had a typeface design project, but I decided mine would be hand-rendered gothic/distressed lettering - very experimental compared to everyone else’s clean & functional font designs.

Another project I remember enjoying was the magazine design project - I went large format with mine, and used a trip to Brighton with my own photography to create a vintage clothing themed magazine called Used.

All my work by this point was heavily influenced by music, fashion and experimental DIY hand-drawn graphics - I think it was my urge to be an artist but trapped in a graphic designer body fighting to get out all the time! But there was still something I fundamentally enjoyed about having a clear brief, timescale and business purpose to respond to that really appealed to me.

I was by now also realising this was a real job, I’d be able to now take these skills out into the wild - and there would be so many different avenues that I could go down - which I liked the idea of. I was never very good at settling on one thing, variety and learning new things for me was exciting.

Taking a break in Amsterdam (2002) and studying inscriptions in Florence (2003).

During the third year we also had our second Typography field trip abroad - again travelling by coach, but this time it was Rome & Florence! Again I’d never been before, and absolutely loved it. The food was incredible everywhere we went. But the scale and ambition in the architecture and design of bridges and stone inscriptions was amazing. This seemed to be our main focus - inscriptions of the earliest serif font into stone - the chisel marks being the thing that made serif fonts what they are. I hadn’t really realised this until you see endless examples of it close-up. We also spent a lot of time inside churches - where you’d often find the best preserved versions of these inscriptions as well as the artwork and architecture.

Undoubtedly there were also a few heavy social nights out - one particular evening, we had turned right out of our budget hotel, and around the corner found a small bar/nightclub where we stayed into the night. I remember somehow ending up outside with Laura from my course - she was feeling unwell, and suddenly was about to be sick. I helped her as she slumped over onto the ground, but I must have not been all together myself, and as I was holding her head for her to be sick, I momentarily let go, only for her to then vomit all over herself! Sorry Laura. After that I attempted to guide her back to the hotel - however I was not clear which direction, and instead of turning right and back to the hotel - I went left. I ended up seeing the entire city centre, walking past sophisticated Italians outside cafes chatting & sipping their wine or coffee, as I staggered past with Laura totally out cold, her feet just dragging behind her. It felt like an hour later when I finally had done a full loop of the city and then got her back into her room safely.

I think it was the penultimate day when our bus broke down, the Dept then has to sort out last minute flights home - but for us it was meaning at least quicker travel home as we headed to Pisa airport.

Later into the third year, I got a new job at the 3B’s - a city-centre pub, next to the town hall/theatre, owned & ran by Reading council. Because of this, they also ran another small comedy venue - easy work as only served drinks in the interval, so saw most of the comedy. Plus they had a beer tent at Womad Festival - so I got to attend this for free which was fun! I enjoyed this job a lot because of the variety and also many of the people and customers were all a friendly bunch too. At the 3B’s - Wednesday nights were Bohemian night - so again a good atmosphere of open-mic musicians, poets and various creative types came in to perform. I also got free reign over the stereo in-between acts and on other nights when I was on shift. I learned how to make shooters - and designed them a menu for this too! The small pleasure I got from this was watching people ordering & drinking the hot tabasco sauce variety. Inevitably someone would come running over for water.

In the 4th year - as I liked the house we were in, I stayed on with James from my course, but the other two girls had now finished their courses and moved out. Andy & Mike from my old house, decided to come and live with us - both wanted to stay around Reading for a bit longer to either start work or study an extra year. We had fun but chilled household - I remember marathon Pro Evolution 4-player games became a regular feature in the house. But otherwise for me and James - we had a lot more work to do in our final year. My dissertation was due - I’d decided to do a design comparison of music magazines - featuring the iconic and experimental US title Raygun, FACE magazine, NME, Top of the Pops and Wire magazine. I was also studying like mad to cram in the history and theory we’d been taught but had never quite sunk in. I was also continuing with practical project work - including some ‘real jobs’ - these would be either local commissions or privately sourced work we could help design and get printed on-site in our professional printing unit.

Second-hand copies of Raygun magazine and the Rubies poetry book, which I designed & illustrated

One of my real jobs included a poetry book called Rubies - this is still one of my favourite, most rewarding projects I have worked on. I met the poet Elizabeth Davies through my mum, who was her friend. She’d written some poems following the loss of her husband, and many people said she should self-publish. So that’s where I came in - I helped her to design the 112-page book which I also illustrated. The drawings were inspired by the artwork I’d seen in Bjork’s 2001 Vespertine album.

Reading was a fun time, and I’d progressed a lot in terms of gaining career skills and making some long-term friends. But after four years I was ready to move on.

The next chapter awaits…