Guest Speaker: Luke Lobbey

Luke Lobbey was the art director of magazine Wonderland and he spoke to us about his design career and how he has gone from step to step. I felt that i could relate to him in many ways, especially when he was describing his days as a student. He said that he was never that good at unversity and that didnt really produce any work that he was too proud of, but he aways had a love for design. He was doing graphics but he had interests in many different things so he said he was quite confused as a student, and there were always better students than him.
His career really started when he did a years worth of work placement at iD magazine and was offered a job as a junior designer. His reflection on his work placement was very helpful also. He just emphasises on keeping a positive and realistic attitude. It is not the best time to be breaking into the design industry due to cut backs and recessions so it is important to be very positive and treat every person as a future contact.
Wonderland was featured on the TV show Dragons Den where it successfully found investors and it has continued to succeed ever since. Luke was the art director right from the start of the magazine so he describes how daunting yet exciting it was, to be able to come up with a whole new image and brand. The target audience is both male and female, aged between 24 and 40. He emphasises that the magazine folows the rule that form comes first, then function. This is evident in many of the layouts that he showed us, as most of the text was challenging to read or pushing the boundaries of legibility. But all this is to compliment the type of customer they attract- the more visually aware demographic.