Stunning work and canny advice from Yale graphic design critic Julian Bittiner

Just as we’re sure that Americans must speak in hushed tones about places they know only as, say, “London’s trendy Dalston,” or “Croydon,” places across the pond such as “Yale” are spoken of with reverence over here.

The mix of academic rigour, design history and one hell of a website make Yale seem a far-away and magical proposition in the design world, so when its senior critic of graphic design Julian Bittiner popped into London we jumped at the chance to find out more about his courses.

Julian, who teachers Introductory Graphic Design, Advanced Graphic Design and Typographic Methods, Conventions & Experiments, also makes some superb work himself, mostly designing for cultural clients under the moniker Applied Aesthetics.

He previously worked at places including Apple and Wolff Olins New York. So what’s it like to study on one of his Yale graphic design programmes? “There’s a huge difference in the way graduate and undergraduate is taught. In the undergraduate programme, some students don’t even start out with a portfolio. You have to be nicer, and more encouraging. We approach design holistically. I start with ‘what is design’,” he says.

“I introduce how design is everywhere and all throughout the built environment. At first we work by hand and do things like Bauhaus-inspired abstract exercises. I teach a type class where we use a Xerox machine, and it’s only in the final third of the class that we move on to working on a computer.

“I tell the students that their work will plummet: you don’t have to think any more once you start to use a computer. It’s so easy to make something, that you make anything.”

Sounds like a dream. Other lectures include an hour-long dash through typographic history, and a closer look at the Swiss design of the 60s and 70s, and their abstract compositions – something close to Julian’s heart both in its exemplary execution and his family history, having grown up partly in Geneva.

Julian’s nomadic life, having spent time in Geneva, a brief period in an English boarding school, time on the US west coast and his current east coast living has impacted his work, he feels. “Living in different places has definitely inflected my work. I find there’s always two different spectrums of opposing concerns my work bounces against: a dual interest in amateurism and professionalism.”

Having first studied fine art, Julian found that on graduating at 22, he “didn’t really have anything to say” as an artist. His move into graphic design slightly later has fostered this interest in both the slick, minimal design aesthetic and a far less refined approach. But it was only In LA that he became aware of the import of his Swiss forefathers on the graphic design world. “In Switzerland there’s a monoculture: you think design only ever looks like that. When I went to the west coast I realised that wasn’t true.” He adds: “I love the work of people who are untrained, as well as people who are hypertrained.”

So what in Julian’s view makes a brilliant graphic design student? “All the lecturers look for different things, but students have to be passionate, super curious, and we look for students who will surprise you. They have to be intense in a way.”

Julian is in London as part of an exchange visit programme with Chelsea College of Arts and Camberwell College of Arts, UAL, and is giving another lecture on Thursday 17 March. For more on the events programme click here.