MALCOLM GARRETT, RDI

  Creative Director, AIG

Malcolm Garrett is a Creative Director at AIG (Applied Information Group) based in London since 2003. A communications designer with three decades of experience, including over 15 years working in interactive media, his work is widely regarded as having a seminal influence on the development of contemporary UK graphic design.

He founded the interactive communications company AMX in 1994, which under his creative leadership won awards for creativity, business effectiveness, and technical excellence, working with international blue chip clients such as Barclays, British Telecom, Hewlett Packard, Image Bank, Saatchi & Saatchi, The Woolwich and The Science Museum, across a range of disciplines from internet to interactive TV to handheld computing. In 2003/4 Malcolm was Consultant to Immersion Studios in Toronto developing interfaces for interactive cinema and collaborative learning software. He directed the interactive design for Virtual Canada in the Canadian Pavilion at Japan Expo 2005. Throughout 2005 he was then Consultant Creative Director at interactive media company X Communications in Dublin.

Prior to AMX Malcolm had founded and co-directed Assorted Images after graduating from Manchester Polytechnic in 1978, designing for artists such as Buzzcocks, Duran Duran, Culture Club, Simple Minds, and pioneering digital and interactive work with Peter Gabriel.

He is a Royal Designer for Industry (RDI), was nominated for the Prince Philip Designers Prize in 1998, is a Visiting Professor at the University of the Arts London, a former Visiting Professor of Interaction Design at the RCA, was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Design from Robert Gordon University Aberdeen, is a Fellow of the RSA, and a member of both D&AD and BAFTA.

Malcolm is widely published in books and magazines around the world. His work has been exhibited in one man shows in London, New York, Tokyo, Savannah and Salford, and more extensively in group shows worldwide. His commitment to design education
includes having served as External Examiner at Central St Martins, Trinity College Dublin, Space Invaders Copenhagen, University of Salford, and currently Manchester Metropolitan University. Teaching, lecturing and speaking at conferences has taken him to Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Holland, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Japan, Korea, South Africa, USA; and universities throughout the UK too numerous to list. He has been a participant at the annual RDI Summer School for the past two years, and is a member of the RDI Mentoring scheme at the RCA.

He has judged annual awards for Design Week, D&AD, BAFTA, BIMA, RSA Student Awards, Proctor & Stephenson Awards, Roses Awards, BT Digital Music Awards, ICAD Awards Dublin, Art Directors Club New York, Hong Kong Design Association, and the Construction New Media Awards Cape Town.

Malcolm currently sits on the RDI Executive Committee, the Eye Magazine Editorial Board, the FontShop Type Board, and in 2006 was a member of the Steering Committee for Publishing Expo.

He is Creative Director of ‘dynamo london’ a showcase for the best in digital and interactive media.