Growing Up In Public
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This is a recording of a lecture held online and in-person at St Bride Foundation on Thursday 13 November 2025.
“Much of my work is well-known, some of it celebrated in certain circles. My particular career trajectory, however, ensured that immediately after graduating almost every design I submitted to a client was usually quickly approved and actually printed. As this was almost exclusively work for the music industry, deadlines and turn around times were ridiculously short. Consequently a fair amount of under-developed, if not downright appalling designs ill-advisedly saw the light of day. This coupled with a youthful and understandably over-zealous appreciation of my own talents, meant that there are a lot of sub-standard designs out there, if you care to go digging. This talk aims to show that any designer, especially this one, is not able to produce consistently memorable work, without first learning a bit more about what it takes to do that.” Malcolm Garrett
At art school in Manchester in 1977 Malcolm Garrett established the fledgling graphic design company Assorted iMaGes (now known as Images&Co) to design record sleeves for local bands Buzzcocks and Magazine. On graduating in 1978 he moved to London, where later, in 1983, he partnered with Kasper de Graaf, the former editor of arts and culture magazine New Sounds New Styles, expanding the client base more generally into arts and media. Together they worked for numerous bands including Duran Duran and Simple Minds, as well as arts organisations such as ICA, Museum of Modern Art Oxford, and Michael Clark Company. Having already explored using computers in the studio early in the 80s, he was soon excited by the potential of the rapidly developing field of digital media. Teaming up with a fresh creative talent, Alasdair Scott, he launched the pioneering digital agency, AMX, in 1994.
In 2000 Malcolm became the first Royal Designer for Industry (RDI) in ‘new media’, and now represents the Royal Designers as Chairman of the Sir Misha Black Awards Committee, which recognises excellence and innovation in design education worldwide.
He is co-founder and Joint Artistic Director of Design Manchester promoting the value of design locally and internationally. In 2020 he was awarded an MBE in Queen Elizabeth II’s Birthday Honours for ‘services to design’.