Geoff Grandfield

I am an Associate Professor at Kingston school of Art with teaching roles for BA, MA and PhD research students, Design School Exchange coordinator and a Faculty role as chair of PG Course Leader forum.

I established the Illustration Animation Department at Kingston after 10 years as BA Course Director and was Head of Department for 4 years. Previously BA Illustration Programme Leader at Middlesex University for 12 years.

I have expertise as a subject and educational consultant for BA and MA Illustration and Visual Communication courses across the UK. As an External Examiner and in validation panel roles I have worked at many U.K. Art Colleges and Universities including Edinburgh, Cambridge, Leeds, Brighton, Bath, Cardiff, Derby, Worcester, Camberwell, Bristol and Dundee. I have also campaigned for the greater recognition of the cultural value of Illustration as a discipline and practice that has an important role beyond its commercial applications, as a creative tool for identity formation and societal change.

I have led the Illustration Animation Department's taught provision and teach across the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes and currently supervise illustration practice-based PhD students. The understanding and recognition of Illustration as a reflective practice that has value not determined by industry, has underpinned my approach in teaching and building the Department and team of staff at Kingston.

The strength of the discipline within education and the subjects ability to prototype effective and innovative forms of social communication forms the basis of the Departmental strategy of discipline identity, audience finding, and new models of practice in a sustainable outward-engaged future.

My Research and supervisory interests cover illustration and the emergence of new approaches to the discipline as a practice and pedagogic subject. In particular, new ways of articulating the central tenet of Illustration as a discipline of translation and representation.

Qualifications and expertise
V&A Illustration Award, overall winner
2 x D&AD Yellow Pencils, best illustration series
3 × 3 publishing Educator of the Year
5 x Association of Illustrators Awards, book illustration category winner