Eloise Parrack

I am an academic, practitioner and researcher, I joined the University in 2021 as Course Leader & Senior Lecturer to the BA(Hons) Graphic Design course. Prior to this I was a Senior Teaching Fellow in Graphic Design and Graphic Design Pathway Coordinator at the Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. I have extensive teaching experience across both HE and FE. I am a Fellow of the Advanced HE.

I have a particular interest in supporting cross-disciplinary collaborations between exploring the role graphic design can play in shaping language and meaning in socio-political contexts. Past student collaborations I have instigated between graphic design students and their peers in Linguistics and language, Politics and Life Sciences. 

As Course Leader at the University of Brighton I work to ensure students have an excellent education in the area of graphic design, leading and overseeing the development of the BA(Hons) Graphic Design curriculum with my colleagues in the department of Visual Communication. 

Throughout my education and career, alongside a focus on type and language, my aim has been to nurture connections between graphic design, wider communities and issues within society, establishing meaningful and critical tools with which to explore,interrogate and visually communicate to a range of audiences. My written and practice-based projects range from research into language usage in media reporting of conflict, to political and economic influences on housing and architecture. 

Research Interests

My current research approaches Type Design connections between historical and digital technologies. At AtypI, Antwerp, 2018, I presented the collaborative research project, Mixed Matrices, An investigation into type design for text sizes vs display through a revival project of Hendrik van den Keere's Small Pica Roman (1578) at the Museum Plantin-Moretus. This project is being developed into a typeface and publication for initial release in 2022. I continue to undertake further individual and collaborative studies into renaissance era typeface design utilising the archive of the Museum Plantin-Moretus, Belgium. This includes a revival project of Robert Granjon’s italics and exploration of contemporary and renaissance type design tools and technologies.  

A second strand of practice-based research is an ongoing thematic of socio-economic relationships with architecture and built environments which has been present throughout my personal practice. A current practice-based research project is based around the subject of Architecture of Leisure on the Belgian Coast. This explores the visual idealism of domestic vacation, shaped through post war policies and identity, through lettering, architecture and photography.