The Careers Officer at my secondary modern school asked me what I was good at. When I replied “art”, he offered me a choice between coachbuilder or mechanic. Immature and too timid to rock the bus, I reluctantly took the former and spent the next six years as a panel beater in a Salford depot.

So, in my first week at Preston Poly, when I was told by a graphics tutor I needed a vehicle to solve my design problem, I thought I’d fallen on my feet. 

…as I was soon to discover, I had. 

The Careers Officer at my secondary modern school asked me what I was good at. When I replied ‘art’, he offered me a choice between coachbuilder or mechanic. Immature and too timid to rock the bus, I reluctantly took the former and spent the next six years as a panel beater in a Salford depot.

So, in my first week at Preston Poly, when I was told by a graphics tutor I needed a vehicle to solve my design problem, I thought I’d fallen on my feet. As I was soon to discover, I had.

My tutors were Ben Casey, George Hollingworth, Alan Livingstone, Mike Cameron, Ron Bray and a little fella called Bob Gill, who could always be reliably found in the library. More than vehicles, they introduced me to all the tools of the designers trade and perhaps, more importantly, taught me how to use those tools to generate ideas in order to communicate effectively.

The Careers Officer at my secondary modern school asked me what I was good at. When I replied ‘art’, he offered me a choice between coachbuilder or mechanic. Immature and too timid to rock the bus, I reluctantly took the former and spent the next six years as a panel beater in a Salford depot.

So, in my first week at Preston Poly, when I was told by a graphics tutor I needed a vehicle to solve my design problem, I thought I’d fallen on my feet. As I was soon to discover, I had.

My tutors were Ben Casey, George Hollingworth, Alan Livingstone, Mike Cameron, Ron Bray and a little fella called Bob Gill, who could always be reliably found in the library. More than vehicles, they introduced me to all the tools of the designers trade and perhaps, more importantly, taught me how to use those tools to generate ideas in order to communicate effectively.