Name Alex Maclean | Education Royal College of Art | |
Alex Maclean (born 1968) is Co-Founder and Creative Director of London based design agency 'Rupert Ray' and former Co-founder & Creative Director of 'Airside'. He is also an accomplished illustrator and award winning animation director.
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Airside and Nippon: A long standing admiration for Japanese culture began with studying Japanese artists in Art History and teaching Shotokan Karate. In 2011 a decade of fruitful collaboration with Japanese companies led to the establishment of Airside Nippon, under the Creative lead of Henki Leung, the longest serving designer in Airside's staff and with the direction of Hiromi Tsuchiya.
Alex has judged a number of prestigious international design awards in his career including D&AD, Design Week and The Scottish Design Awards.
Speaking tours, exhibitions and conferences have taken him all over the world including a British Council tour of Australia and New Zealand, Design Indaba in South Africa. One visit was to Denmark with talks in various cities, including Lynfabbriken at Aarhus.
Awards and Recognition
Under Alex's Creative Direction Airside has been recognised 9 times by D&AD and 2 BAFTA nominations. In 2007 Alex was invited to become a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Academic: Undergraduate study in Brighton Polytechnic and Florence University, before briefly working in Hong Kong. After which Alex Maclean studied Architecture and Interior Design at the Royal College of Art, graduating with a thesis project called 'The Virtual Parliament' in response to a Design Council brief. On the success of this project, Alex become the RCA 'Rowntree' Research Fellow in 1996, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Between 1996 and 1997 Alex co-founded and became a trustee of UK Citizens Online Democracy, a charity promoting democracy via the web, a project which involved the three main UK party leaders prior to Blair's election. Alex lectures and gives workshops in many UK universities.
Publications
The projects created under Alex Maclean as Creative Director at Airside have been reproduced mostly in design press and hardbacks. Among these are Airside by Airside published by Die Gestalten on Airside's 10th anniversary. Alex was interviewed by Bill Moggridge for his book 'Designing Media' in which Alex explained his opinion about the relevance and appropriateness of linear narrative in digital content. Other publications include Los Logos, RGB (British Graphics), Sonic.