Over the last couple of years we have been working with colleges, universities and educational groups in the North, giving lectures, lessons and workshops to students ranging from Level 2 to Level 6.
Below is a collection of things we can offer and have done — If you would like us to come and work with your institution please get in touch.
What We Offer:
Understanding Teamwork/Collaboration
We work collaboratively with a number of different groups and strongly believe in this working model. These workshops help students understand the way teams work and how they can fit within a group of people, know their strengths and weaknesses and ultimately produce work they could not achieve alone.
Experimental Working Practice
Introducing students to a more experimental way of working. This is a lot about telling them ‘Yes, you can do that’ to try get them out of the more rigid structure of school thinking. We also apply this model to work that institutions may already be running with their students, helping them to see the brief or problem in a different light.
Finding Creative Communities
We see being part of a creative network of people after finishing university as a hugely important part of staying in the creative industries. It allows you to create a network of people to collaborate with, share ideas with and to pool resources with. We help students understand this through our experience of working in Manchester and the creative community we have found and helped develop there.
Bespoke Lecturing
We of course offer all the workshops listed above, but this is an ever growing list. We often create new workshops and briefs, depending on the specific needs of the students and institutions. Though we already have experience teaching and running workshops on typography, layout, editorial design, basic design, web design, identity design, ideas generation and all the specialist workshops mentioned above.
Experience:
HE Tuition at The University of Chester
February 2012 – May 2013
8 weeks working at The University of Chester on the Identity Design Module with Level 6 students. Helping students as they entered the final stages of their design research project, working with them on final development, refinement and production of one of their final projects of the year leading up to the university’s degree show.
HE Tuition at The University of Chester
October 2012 – January 2013
11 weeks working at The University of Chester on the Identity Design Module with Level 6 students. Working with the students on initial research, concept generation, development and through to project completion. The aim was to get the students to think about identity in ways more in depth than simple logo generation and brand guidelines. We have asked students to choose a local community and work to develop, fix or completely redesign ways that the community and it’s visual identity could interact with it’s current and potential audience.
FD Graphic Design Lecture at Manchester College
December 2012
We delivered a short ‘show and tell’ lecture about us, our work and how we set up Textbook Studio. We talked with the students about our route from education to where we are now, our working practice and answered questions they had about getting into industry, getting clients and being a happy designer.
FE Tuition at Manchester College
October 2012 – January 2013
We were asked by FD Photography tutors at Manchester College to work with their students throughout a module on self-reflection, in particular on their design skills and awareness of branding, identity and portraying themselves professionally. We gave workshops, presentations and on hand technical assistance to develop the students’ knowledge of branding, and to help them create their own personal identity. The module will culminate in a group exhibition held in Manchester city centre, which we are currently in the process of helping the students to plan and promote.
FE Tuition at Manchester Metropolitan University
March 2011 – June 2011
For 13 weeks we worked alongside Manchester Municipal Desing Corporation and Ultimate Holding Company to organise the logistics and a variety of workshops for Manchester Metropolitan University’s experimental ‘Unit X’ module. We worked with the School of Art’s Level 4 students from a variety of pathways (Contemporary Art History, 3D Design, Interior Design, Fine Art, Interactive Art, Fashion, Textiles in Practice, Photography, Illustration with Animation and Film). The University was recently awarded the 2012 Sir Misha Black prize for Innovation in Design Education partly for the unorthodox work going on as part of ‘Unit X’.
HE Tuition at Stockport College
January 2012 — April 2012
15 weeks teaching ‘Design Skills’ and ‘Applied Design’ with Stockport College Level 4 BA (Hons). Classes involved typography, poster design and editorial design, but the main focus was on understanding typography and hierarchy within these different mediums.
HE Tuition at Stockport College
January 2012 — March 2012
11 weeks teaching web design with the Foundation Degree in Design and Advertising at Stockport College. The focus wasn’t about how to code websites, it was about understanding them in relation to their usability, structure, hierarchy and interactivity.
HE Tuition at Stockport College
March 2012
For 4 weeks we stepped in to run the Foundation Degree in Design and Advertising at Stockport College, teaching full time with the 1st and 2nd year. This involved continuing with existing briefs, starting new ones and then handing back over at the end of the month.
HE Lecture and Workshop at Derby University
Febuary 2012
We visited the University of Derby to deliver a Lecture and day workshop with Level 5 Graphic Design. It consisted of a lecture about our experience of ‘doing things differently’ told through our experience at university and our route to becoming self employed. We followed this up with 2 workshops, aimed at reinforcing the point we had brought up in our lecture.
HE Lecture at Sheffield Hallam University
Febuary 2012
Lecture for Sheffield Hallam University Level 5 design and advertising about what they can do after leaving university, told through our experience of becoming self employed. This was followed by an informal talk in our studio, which helped show the students a different kind of studio environment than they might have previously seen.
FE Workshops at Aquinas College
January 2012
Textbook was invited to deliver some workshops to Lower-Sixth students that would enhance their ability to generate ideas and imagery for projects. Workshop content focused on typography, visualisation of ideas and spontaneous methods that students could use for producing creative concepts. Students were discouraged from working on computers during the sessions to promote their natural ability to think on their feet, work with their hands and incorporate relevant found materials into their designs.
HE Tuition at Stockport College
September 2011 – November 2011
We spent a few months working on the Graphic Design pathway of the Design & Visual Arts course at Stockport College. Textbook was asked to help introduce first year Graphics students to the course through the Basic Design module.
We also accompanied the Design & Visual Arts school on a residential trip to Poland, where we researched and organised visits to local design studios for first and second year students.
FE Tuition at Stockport College
November 2010 – September 2011
For 11 months we worked with students aged 14–16 years on the Creative & Media Diploma pathway at Stockport College. During this time we were asked to develop and re-design the way the students practical portfolio was presented and submitted for marking. To do this, we took their practical work from a paper portfolio to a more organised and up to date digital one — enabling full time tutors to submit student work to external exam boards online. This also included training students and staff in how to use the various related computer programs.