Noel Douglas

Short Bio
Noel Douglas is a London-based artist, designer, and activist renowned for his politically engaged work that intersects art, design, and social movements. His practice focuses on the relationship between aesthetics and politics, particularly the anti-capitalist uses of graphic communication and the commodification of space and popular culture.

Longer Bio

My studio and street based art and design work ranges across all media. My main focus is on Signs, Memes and Symbols and how the struggles over the meaning of these Signs is amplified by Social Networks and Political Movements.

I collate Memes that criticise Capitalism at Meme Revolt and Advertising that references Revolution at Ad Revolt. Recent collaborations have been with Grenfell Next of Kin and Liberate Tate and I was a co-founder of Occupy Design that ran from 2012 to 2018.

I am currently the Course Leader of Graphic Design and Animation at the School of Computing, Engineering and Creative Industries at the University of Bedfordshire. I have taught art and design and been involved in research projects at The Slade School Of Art, Kingston University, Royal College of Art and London South Bank University and led numerous workshops and given talks in several art schools in the rest of the UK and Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas.

Some recent exhibitions have been Inequalities at the Milan Triennale, Hope To Nope at the Design Museum, Disobedient Objects and A World To Win, Posters of Protest and Revolution at the V&A that have toured nationally and internationally over the last few years, Graphic Design Now In Production that has toured round the United States. I was a finalist in the 2010 International Poster Biennial at the Wilanow Museum in Warsaw, one of the artists in the 2008/9 Taipei Biennial in Taiwan curated by Oliver Ressler, Vasif Kortun and Manray Hsu. In 2009 I curated with Tony Credland a group show Signs of Revolt at the Truman Brewery in London in November 2009 which surveyed the last decades best politically engaged work and included participating artists and designers such as Peter Kennard, David Gentleman and Jonathan Barnbrook.

In the 90’s I was involved with the early Web explosion after the introduction of the World Wide Web and I created one of the first Art School Degree Show websites for the University of Derby. I was part of a Arts collective, Resonance, that provided internet and art installations in early 90’s rave clubs and created other events like doing the first rock/dance gig webcast for The Shamen, using the first Apple Quicktime cameras rather than video because of the ADSL speed! I created video for Derby Playhouse for use as projections and special effects in Richard III, and video sculptures that were installed in clubs like Oscillate that hosted live shows from bands on labels like Warp such as Autechre and Aphex Twin.

In the past I have worked in design research at Phillips, the Computer Related Design Research Studio at the Royal College Of Art, where I worked alongside design studio Dunne and Raby and at Amsterdam based Multimedia studio Mediamatic.

My work is part of the permanent collection of the British Museum, Museum Of London and the V&A and the Center for Social and Political Graphics, Los Angeles and it has toured Asia and Africa as part of the ‘Protest’ show put on by the British Council.

I have written for cultural publications such as Eye the International Journal of Graphic Design and Dezeen and my publications include, as Author and Editor, Website Graphics Now (Thames and Hudson 1999), and as Art Director, the Regime Change Begins At Home Playing Cards (Bookmarks 2003) which went on to sell 30,000 copies around the world in 2003/4/5. My work has been featured in numerous articles and publications such as Adbusters magazine (Canada), Ad Week, Atlas magazine (USA), Art Monthly, Blueprint, Dazed and Confused, It’s Nice That, The Economist, The Guardian, Malababa (Spain), Mute, NME and Time Out and Viewpoint magazine.

Music and Music Visuals projects:

Alongside my Art and Design interests I also make music and music related visuals.

I am the Creative Director of a VFX studio, Effekts creating videos and live visuals for my own music and others using circuit bent analog video gear and digital effects processors, filters and projectors.

I have been in a number of bands since the mid-80s, when I was involved in the independent music scene writing fanzines and playing, supporting bands like my My Bloody Valentine. Some later work from a band called Free Machine I was in, in the late 90s and early 00s is here.

My Current Solo Music Project:

Mini Oblivion

bandcamp | youtube | instagram

I play guitar for indie band silver biplanes

I am a supporter of Arts Emergency, which aims to ensure that working class kids can still get into creative careers despite the huge increase in tuition fees and lack of support for the arts at all levels of the education system.

All my work, studio and social media links can be found here:
https://linktr.ee/noeldouglas

I am the Creative Industries representative for the University of Bedfordshire at CHEAD (Council for Higher Education in Art and Design).

I am a member of the Graphic Design Educators Network.

I am the lead for our School on the Universities Sustainability Committee, which has achieved the number 1 position on the People and Planet Green University Leage and for the Design Council's Skills For Planet, which aims to embed Climate Literacy in Higher Education Creative Industries Courses.

I am currently External Examiner for the BA (hons) Graphic Design Programme at the American College in Greece and BA (hons) Digital Art at the University of Creative Arts, Farnham and BA (hons) Digital Art at The Institute of Creativity and Innovation (ICI) Xiamen University (XMU), China.

• Art and Design Activism
• Co-Creation with Community Groups
• Experimental Graphics and Animation
• Memes
• Semiotics
• Street Art
• Video and Installation Art
• Visual Culture and Politics

• Graphic Design
• Animation
• Fine Art
• Digital Art and Design
• Video