University of Suffolk Graphic Design / Graphic Illustration

📣 Calling all students who studied with us in 2016 - we have an exciting project in the works and we’d love your help!

We're looking to reconnect with our alumni community by sharing photos, videos and stories that capture your time as a University of Suffolk student.

We'd like to feature some of your memories across our social media channels and celebrate the experiences that make our alumni community so special.

We're looking for any of the following:

📸 Photos of you during your time at Suffolk
• Your favourite spot on campus
• Freshers' Week memories
• Graduation day celebrations
• Course-related trips or placements
• For our arts graduates, practical projects you worked on

☕ Your favourite places in Ipswich
• Best coffee spots
• Favourite lunch locations
• Go-to pubs
• Memorable nights out

🎓 Your student experience
• What course you studied
• Your favourite memory from university
• Societies you were involved in
• What student fashion looked like during your time here

To take part, send us a direct message or email [email protected] with your photos, videos and memories.

We can't wait to look back at the last decade of memories with you!

Please note: By submitting content, you consent to your name, image and comments being used by the University of Suffolk for promotional purposes, including social media, publications, press releases and other marketing materials.

This Saturday, 30 May, 12–2pm, is the Opening Event of the ‘Finding Bob Linney’ exhibition that our very own Senior Lecturer has been working on with Jacky Linney and Tony Casement, at The Cut in Halesworth, Suffolk.

“This is the first comprehensive exhibition of Linney’s work, who sadly died in 2023. For over 50 years he drew, painted, printed and designed an extraordinary range of distinctive posters and other material for music, film, theatre, festivals and activism. He also founded the Health Images charity, working with community-workers to create visual aids for public health messages in poorer countries.”

Finding Bob Linney: an exhibition of a graphic life
27 May–18 July 2026 / Tuesday–Saturday 10am–4pm
The Cut, 8 New Cut, Halesworth, Suffolk, IP19 8BY
Free entry
It’s on until July 18 – Not to be missed!

Opening event: Saturday 30 May, 12–2pm
Closing public lecture: Saturday 18 July, 2pm

—

The end results of Screen Design is a bit like watching a swan glide across the surface while all the work is going on underneath, and what you can’t see is the user-centred strategies that underpins the design and illustration work – applied research, concept mapping, user persona, user journey, information architecture, user flow, heuristics, and wireframing were as part of their approach to problem-solving.

Although these designs make it look easy, spare a moment to think about the design process, but just look at those results!

In order: Alfie Bird, Milly Ward, Lulu Rose-Porter, Emma Pirie and Ewan Marks.

A massive thanks to for working with the students this year, the results speak for themselves.

It’s good to learn how to walk before you can run, next stop – Animation Principles and Kinetic Typography, followed by developing and storyboarding sequential ideas.

Fantastic cycles by Level 4s, inspired by workshops led by using

It’s good to learn how to walk before you can run. Next stop – Animation Principles and Kinetic Typography, followed by developing and storyboarding sequential ideas.

Workshops led by animator and illustrator using the fantastic

We welcomed back alumni Laurence Berry to the studio this week for his first Life After Lectures talk.

Since graduating in 2011 and going on to do an MA in Communication Design, Laurence first worked at FutureGov when it was just a start-up, before joining Government Digital Services (GDS). He is now a freelance service designer, working internationally to support governments build simpler and more inclusive public services.

It was a fascinating talk, taking in everything from Margeret Calvert’s road signage system and the London Underground map as inspiration for the Gov.uk website, to being in Bagdad with armed guards protecting him while walking around where he was working. The underlying principles he had as a student of wanting to work for the public good is as strong today as when he started at the University of Suffolk in 2009.

He even ran a service design exercise with students after the talk so they could get a sense of what he does when out working with clients in far flung countries.

Thanks, Laurence, for the stimulating and thought-provoking talk.

It was great to welcome back Sammi Wong to the Graphics Studio recently for a Life After Lectures talk. Sammi graduated in 2023, and has since gone on to win a World Illustration Award and have her work displayed on the side of a building in Ipswich.

She currently works as a graphic designer at Suffolk New College, and takes on freelance illustration projects. Her background in exhibition design and her experience as a designer meant she was able to provide fantastic advice to our students.

Thanks Sammi, it’s always good to have you back on campus.

Our second‑year Graphic Design students have been busy creating a collection of ABC book concepts—a hands‑on project exploring publishing, bookbinding, conceptual thinking, authorial ideas, sequencing, and page layout design.

A brilliant blend of craft, creativity, and editorial design skills.

Thinking about studying Graphic Design?

Join us at a University of Suffolk Open Day, the next one is on 18 April. Come and meet the team, see the studios, and discover what the course has to offer. You can register on the website. We’d love to see you there!

Let’s get one thing straight: TYPE has a purpose – to serve communication, and, as a designer we should understand that it is there to do our bidding – and sometimes we might just need to unleash it from its digital shackles, print it, and let scissors or a scalpel find new typographic forms. The first-years have been giving this printed type a workout, revealing bespoke typography.

Be mindful of the baseline!

Quotes, where instances of history and popular culture have been summed up in a few words, can often be remembered imperfectly, often attributed to the wrong person or context, and take on a life of their own…

So, what if we intentionally tweak a quote for the sake of communicating ideas? Our first-years have been misquoting to conjure creative ideas about design and illustration, and exhibiting the results in ‘The Art of Words’.