D&AD takes an educated look

British Design and Art Direction, the newly renamed design and advertising charity, is reviewing its education policy to take more account of practitioners’ needs.

Former Design Business Association director Vicky Sargent has been brought in to review and evaluate the association’s current education activities, according to D&AD president Mary Lewis.

Sargent, now an independent management consultant, will report back to D&AD director David Kester and the board in July with a strategic framework for its future involvement in education and training. “The idea is not to reinvent the wheel or encroach on areas that other people already cover,” she says.

The aim, says Kester, is to start to implement a programme in the autumn with a view to beginning any new courses next spring, adding that priority is likely to be given to “the training and development side”.

The move coincides with D&AD’s return to financial health. “We will soon be in a position to be investing again,” says Kester, citing education as a high priority. D&AD is expected to spend 100 000 in the year ending July, compared with 40 000 in 1993/94.

The demise this summer of D&AD’s educational offshoot, London’s School of Communication Arts, through the ill health of founder John Gillard and because “it was not paying its way”, made the situation more urgent.