Today I attended the launch of the new Billy Blue College of Design college based in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane.  The launch included inspiring talks from Claudio Kirac (Gold Coast based designer), Louise Bannister (founder editor of Frankie Magazine) and the Head of College Andrew Barnum. 

Claudio Kirac shared us his story and how he turned his passion into a career.  Born in Coffs Harbour and now living in the Gold Coast, he started as an illustrator due to the love of drawing.  Later on in his career, he has moved to video editing and photography but it is the love of graphic design which has harnessed these worlds together.  After leaving high school, Claudio finished a Diploma of Graphic Design and focused on skateboard designs and other freelancing work.  It was not until the iMac, and skills associated with learning the programs, where he was able to learn about layouts to create prints for mediums such as clothing. 

Claudio's current "day job" is via Billabong and working with this group to produce and construct designs for their clothing - the showreel that he showed us had designs which looked familiar!

And interesting point that he brought up is that he saw his own way of working as similar to the "Renaissance Man".  Taking on and excelling in different areas (or "attach the different bits"!), to study new skills and to harness these into a professional and creative career.  He also had some interesting quotes which I'll share here too

You can look around you and see creativity.

What you see if what you get.

(look at the world around you with an) infinite eye of design.

The next person to speak was Louise Bannister who is the founding editor of Frankie Magazine.  She was only young, age 24, when she and her friend Lara Burke started the magazine. After deciding that they didn't want to be involved in the creation of children's magazines for a media group, they thought about the idea of Frankie and of doing a magazine that was visually stimulating, let the "content speak for itself" and to speak from a voice of their own age.  While Louise sees herself more as a publisher and editor rather than as a designer, she had some good points which I think were great hints for designers when it comes to working in the publishing industry.  Frankie Magazine has a unique design and this is reflected throughout the issues.  Louise talks about the different types of designs in the publishing world - there is

• Design as content
• Design as distraction from the content
• Design that amplifies the content
• Design that lets the content breathe

Louise sees the role of design as not to judge but to provide a platform, perhaps, for the content.

Today, Frankie Magazine is looking at 40 000 issues in terms of figures which is a big thing for a magazine such as Frankie! Louise and Claudio has an entrepreneurial spirit of starting up projects like this and it reflects in the "Billy Blue story" recounted by the Head of College, Andrew Barnum.

In the same way that William Billy Blue, described as a "gourless, enigmatic young entrepreneur", helped shaped not only Sydney but also the creative and design industries we hope that 2010 is an exciting year for the first Brisbane batch of Billy Blue College of Design.

Hannah Suarez