Nigel Aono-Billson

Since the start of my career in the Creative Industries, as a Graphic Designer, at the start of my career in the mid-1980s. I have been commissioned and participated in the creation and production of a wide-ranging set of creative design solutions for clients both Nationally and Internationally.

Alongside my career as a graphic designer, I have held various positions as an HEI Design Educator. My first teaching position was at the William De Kooning Academie (Academie van Beeldende Kunsten), in Rotterdam, in 1991.

Since then, I have taught and mentored in both Undergraduate and Postgraduate Graphic Design and Visual Communication programmes in the UK, America, Finland and Thailand. I have also contributed to the establishment and validation of several Graphic Design and Digital Design Undergraduate courses, plus the coordination, development and curriculum delivery of a number of these.

I continue to pursue a range of design practice-led research activities for international audiences and to create design responses for client-based commissions, both in the UK and internationally. I am also a design writer and author.

2023 Course Leader, MA Graphic Design and Senior Lecturer 1 FTE, MA Graphic Design, BA (Hons) Graphic Design, University of Brighton, Brighton (current).

2023 Senior Lecturer, 1 FTE, MA Graphic Design, University of Brighton, Brighton (current).

2022/2023 Senior Lecturer, fixed term, BA (Hons) Graphic Design, MA Graphic Design, University of Brighton, Brighton.

2018 Partner – KOBO A–B, Japanese craft, food + culture brand, curation, events and goods. www.kobo-a-b.co.uk @kobo_a_b (Current).

2019/2019 Visiting Arjan – Open studio workshops CommDe | The International Programme in Communication Design, Department of Industrial Design, Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok.

2014/2018 Subject leader – Graphic Communication/Senior lecturer 1 FTE, BA (Hons) Graphic Communication, Norwich University of the Arts, Norwich.

2013/2014 Hourly paid lecturer, BA (Hons) Graphic Communication, Norwich University of the Arts, Norwich.

2011/2013 Pathway Leader and Senior lecturer, 0.6 FTE, Graphic Design, BA (Hons) Visual Arts. Tutor: Yr1 (level 4), Yr2 (level 5), HND Graphic Design and Advertising, Canterbury College, Canterbury.

2009/2010 Sessional lecturer, digital media, Yr2 (level 5) HEI Industry advisor and validation panel member, to BA (Hons) Graphic Design, Web Design, Video and Motion Graphics (digital suite) and the BA (Hons) Combined Honours, Multimedia Design, Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury.

2007/2011 Pathway leader and Sessional lecturer, Graphic Design, BA (Hons) Visual Arts. Tutor: Yr1 (level 4), Yr2 (level 5), HND Graphic Design and Advertising, Canterbury College, Canterbury.

2006/2007 Sessional lecturer, BA (Hons) Graphic Design Yr1 (level 4), Yr2 (level 5), Digital Processes for Web and New Media Environments, University of Derby, Derby.

2005/2008 Senior lecturer 0.5 FTE, BA (Hons) Graphic Design Part-time route, Tutor, BA (Hons) Design & Art Direction. Tutor, MA (Hons) Design & Art Direction, Manchester School of Art & Design, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester.

2002 Graphic designer and owner, studio aono-billson, Japan and UK (current).

2001/2001 HEI advisor and assistant to Malcolm Garret RDI MBE, Visiting Professor, Royal College of Art, London.

2000/2002 Senior creative, AMX, London, Interactive design, design for screen-based, digital and multimedia, London.

1999/2000 Subject leader – Graphic design/Senior lecturer 0.6 FTE, Graphic Design, MA (Hons) Communication Design programme. Dali short courses instructor: Easter 2000. Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, UAL, London.

1998/1999 Visiting – Lecturer, School of Arts and Letters, Department Art and Design, Design Futures, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. 

1998/1998 Visiting – Adjunct professor/Course leader, Graphic Design, Digital Imaging and introduction to design for the web media, Longwood University, Virginia, USA.

1995/1998 Partner, Herb, London, Creative Consultants Limited, London.

1995/1998 Senior lecturer 0.4 FTE, BA (Hons) Graphic Design, Yr2 (level 5) Tutor. Lecturer MA (Hons) Performance Sportswear Design, University of Derby, Derby.

1995/1995 Creative Director, Curious Design Consultants, London.

1994/1995 Lecturer, 1.0 FTE, BA (Hons) Graphic Design, Yr1 (level 4) Year Tutor, Erasmus/international Graphic Design links, University of Derby, Derby.

1993/1994 Visiting lecturer, BA (Hons) Graphic Design, University of Derby, Derby.

1992/1993 Visiting lecturer, Typography lecturer, BA (Hons) Advertising course, WKDA (William De Kooning Academie) Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

1990/1992 Designer, Hard Werken, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

1988/1990 Head of Graphics, 20/20 (retail & interior design), London.

1987/1988 Graphic designer and owner, The Big One, London.

1986/1987 Designer, A.I.D, London.

1985/1986 Designer, Y&R, London.

1984/1985 Designer, The Tyrrell Design Company, London.

Research/outputs

2022 Iyagi – new voices from Korea. Eight chapbooks from new Korean writers. “Iyagi is a unique collaboration between an international group of independent creative practitioners, with the University of East Anglia, the National Centre for Writing, and made possible by LTI Korea.”Design and layout: Knockoff Viagra and Jeje – Sang Young Park, Take My Voice – Serang Chung, Towards 0% – Seo Ije, Kyoko and Kyoji – Han Junghyun, The Greatest Gamble on Earth – Kwak Jaesik, Walk with a Goddess – Ji-Min Lee, Like a Barbie - Park Min-jung, For That Which Cannot Be Restored – Park Wanseo.

ISBN: 978-1-91-386150-6 / 978-1-91-386151-3 / 978-1-91-386152-0 / 978-1-91-386153-7 / 978-1-91-386154-4 / 978-1-91-386155-1 / 978-1-91-386156-8 / 978-1-91-386157-5

2022  Fedrigoni 365 – Edition: Volume 4, date: 23 November — no.23: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 687, 1597, 2584, 4181, 6765 …  Fn = F n-1+ Fn-2 (Fibonacci sequence).

2021 ‘Public Menace’. “The first anthologised edition of the Public Menace project, a poetry platform that seeks to encourage collaboration and build creative networks between writers outside of major cities”. A collection of feminist and LBGT Street Poetry, for EGGBOX, UEA, a Publishing Project, who works with students and pupils to widen participation in literature and open up the publishing industry.

ISBN: 978-1-9138611-8-6

2021 ‘Cultural Flows Between Japan and the West: The Ishibashi Foundation Lecture Series held between 2015 and 2018’. The publication is for SISJAC (Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures) with the Ishibashi Foundation in Japan and documents a series of lectures held between 2013 and 2018 in Japan. 

ISBN: 978-1-9989929-0-4

2021 Fedrigoni 365, Edition: 717/4,000, date: 1st – seed word: ‘Dot’

2019 Yeoyu – new voices from Korea. Eight chapbooks from new Korean writers. “Yeoyu is a unique collaboration between an international group of independent creative practitioners, with the University of East Anglia, Norwich University of the Arts, the National Centre for Writing, and made possible by LTI Korea.” Design and layout: Europa – Han Kang, Five Preludes & a Fugue – Cheon Heerahn, Kongs Garden – Hwang Jungeun, Left’s Right / Right’s Left – Han Yujoo.

ISBN: 978-1-911343-58-5 / 978-1-911343-60-8 / 978-1-911343-62-2 / 978-1-911343-65-3

2017 Keshiki – new voices from Japan. Eight chapbooks from new Japanese writers, the Keshiki series, a collaboration between the University of East Anglia, Writers’ Centre Norwich, and Norwich University of the Arts, funded by The Nippon Foundation. Strangers Press, funded by the Nippon Foundation. Design and layout: Transparent Labyrinth – Keiichiro Hirano, At The Edge Of The Wood – Masatsugu Ono, Friendship For Grown Ups – Nao-Cola Yamazaki, and The Girl Who Is Getting Married – Aoko Matsuda. 

ISBN: 978-1911343080 / 978-1911343066 / 978-1911343028 / 978-1911343059

Areas of research examine and explore the digital and physical, new futures and frontiers, universal design for intelligence, design systems for living and AI futures.

Research and practice keywords: creative direction, art direction, author/auteur, design writing; graphic communication, graphic design, image making, typography, motionography.

The ever-changing opportunities that exist within graphic design and visual communication, generative design systems convergent, and digital technologies. Specialisms covered include; design innovation, thinking, making, doing, engaging in multi-disciplinary approaches, redefining problems beyond predefined boundaries, creating solutions based on a new understanding of complex situations, fostering progressive, radical approaches and creative resolutions, using prototypes and archetypes, discovering new intuitive behaviours.