Sketch Pad: The Laurence King Blog

Welcome to Sketch Pad, the Laurence King blog.

Every so often we invite one of our authors or a competition winner from the areas of architecture, fashion or design to write a blog.

It can be about anything they wish and each one will certainly make for interesting reading!

Joyce Macario

Joyce Walsh Macario is a professor at Boston University and wrote "Graphic Design Essentials: Skills, Software and Creative Strategies."
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Francesca Gavin

Francesca Gavin is author of 'Hell Bound: New Gothic Art' and 'Street Renegades: New Underground Art'.
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Andrew Selby

Andrew Selby is author of Animation in Process and is now writing a book about Animation for the Portfolio series published by Laurence King. His research covers the areas of visual communication and he has written and created work extensively around animation, illustration and graphic design. He currently lives in Berkeley, California.
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Bradley Quinn

Bradley Quinn is an author and journalist who contributes to publications worldwide. Bradley is the author of Chinese Style, Scandinavian Style, and Mid-century Modern, published by Conran Octopus, and his books Techno Fashion and The Fashion of Architecture were released by Berg. Bradley has also written Textile Designers at the Cutting Edge, released by Laurence King Publishers in early 2009 and co-authored books such as UltraMaterials, Body Architecture, Contemporary Textiles, Interfaces and Hussein Chalayan. Bradley lives in London.
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Hywel Davies

Hywel Davies is a fashion writer based in London. He is the author of 'Modern Menswear', and '100 New Fashion Designers.' Hywel writes for Grafik, Time Out, The Guardian, The Sunday Telegraph, The Observer, The Financial Times, The Independent and SHOWstudio. Hywel also runs the Fashion Communication & Promotion degree at Central St Martins.
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Mark Shaw

I'm a copywriter and business-head, and I built a design studio, Jupiter Design, around my copywriting client base. Jupiter is doing well under the management of Jayne Mayled, and I remain its owner. I am currently the non-executive chairman, which means I can oversee the board, but keep out of operational activities. I do volunteer work as a regional board director of Young Enterprise East Midlands and as chairman of the Nottingham Creative Business Awards. I have also recently worked as a Design Associate on the Design Council's Immerse Team. As well as lecturing and training on copywriting, and taking on copywriting briefs, I work as a business development consultant, and handle branding and film projects, with two small enterprises, Standing Rock and Nutshell. www.standingrock.co.uk www.nutfilm.com
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Bill Dunn

Bill Dunn worked on GQ magazine in the Nineties, becoming style director interviewing fashion designers from Armani to Tom Ford. He worked with Terence Donovan on the iconic photographer's last ever project - a series of portraits and interviews with rock legends about what it means to be British. He moved to Esquire as senior editor interviewing Hunter S Thompson and testing cars (sometimes to destruction) with Damon Hill. He's written Man About Town, a history of men's style and recently a book on Uniforms, published by Laurence King.
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Olivia Meehan

Olivia is a PhD Candidate in History of Art and Architecture at the University of Cambridge. Her thesis topic is ‘The European Presence in Japanese Painting of the Early Modern Era c. 1550-c.1650’. Originating from Melbourne, Australia she is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts (University of Melbourne) and began her career in stage management and film production. Before returning to study History of Art full-time in England she worked for the Melbourne International Arts Festival, and as project manager at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA). Olivia was awarded the John Fleming travel award in March 2009, sponsored by Laurence King Publishing.
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Melanie bowles

Melanie is the principal author of ‘Digital Textile Design’ and has worked in the field of digital textile design over the past decade as a consultant and designer. She has worked for many high profile companies such as Nicole Farhi, French Connection, Studio DB and Amanda Kelly selling designs internationally. A Senior Lecturer at Chelsea College of Art and Design in Digital Design and is an active researcher in the field of Digital Textile Design and focuses on the cross between traditional textile craft combined with new technology. Melanie lives in Clapham, London with her partner and three children.
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Beth Grabowski Bill Fick

Beth Grabowski and Bill Fick are the authors of Printmaking: A Complete Guide to Materials and Processes, released in July 2009. Beth Grabowski is a Professor of Art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Bill Fick is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University. He is also the Director of Cockeyed Press in Durham, North Carolina.
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Cally Blackman

Cally Blackman studied fashion design at St. Martin's and History of Dress at the Courtauld Institute. She lectures widely, teaches at various institutions including Central Saint Martin's and has written several books including 100 Years of Fashion Illustration. She lives in London.
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