KU graphic design students show the professionals exactly how it’s done

By Natasha Szymaniak

When the official Olympic and Paralympics posters were unveiled last month, not everyone was impressed.

Third year graphic design and photography students at Kingston University were not pleased with the results and created alternative posters.

Patrick Burgoyne, editor of Creative Review magazine and a guest lecturer at Kingston, set graphic design and photography students the task to produce better posters.

He said: “I felt that the problem with the official posters was that the choices of artists were so dull. People like Tracey Emin are still portrayed as being ‘edgy’ but really, the likes of her and Rachel Whiteread, are very much the establishment now.”

With only a week to make their own designs under the same brief as the celebrity artists, students were asked “for a personal response to the idea of the London Olympics and the intersection between art and sport”.

The students designs were featured in the Creative Blog, the blog site for Creative Review magazine, which over its 20 years of production has subscribers in over 80 countries and readers online in over 120 countries.
Burgoyne said: “I think some of the ideas are fantastic, every bit as conceptually interesting as the official ones, if not more so. I also really enjoyed the ones in which the students were critical of the Olympic project, raising doubts about the idea that it will be great for London and querying its commercialisation.”

Course director, Rebecca Wright said: “The student responses reflect the range of mixed emotions many Londoners feel about the Olympics, the chance for celebration, concerns about overcrowding, the excitement of expectation and fears.”

See the full gallery of posters here.