Dr John Rooney

Senior Lecturer
Graphic Design

Before moving into education, John worked on a range of national and international Graphic Design projects in the creative arts sector. This included a 15 year commission with Tate Gallery, working with Tate Liverpool and London on Catalogues, Posters and Exhibition publicity for artists including Peter Blake, The Andy Warhol Foundation and Roy Liechtenstein, plus commissioned work for Adidas Europe, The University of Cambridge, Arts About Manchester, Steve Bell, Contact Theatre Manchester, FACT Liverpool, Frankfurt Book Fair, The University of Liverpool, Manchester City Art Gallery, People’s History Museum, Play It Again Sam Records, Belgium, Reebok UK, Umbro: Europe, USA, Japan

John has a practice led PhD in Graphic Design from The University of Leeds. His PhD project, titled “Journeys on the A664” explores the area of situated autoethnographc creative identity. The practice work for the PhD was informed by the vernacular typographic language of a familiar journey on Manchester public transport. Alongside “Journeys on the A664”, the project developed a new transferable methodology, Situated Creative Identity, devised to inform original and distinctive personal identity for creative practitioners.

Working with Professor Malcolm Garrett, John has curated three projects with Design Manchester; “I Shout For the Fall”, “New Art School Rules” presented at Bury Art Museum, and Past Present Future, a set of recordings exploring the formative influence of over 80 creative practitioners.

John is full member of the Design Research Hub. External research projects include the curation of international exhibitions, working with Professor Malcom Garrett and Design Manchester

His favourite colour is Orange (Pantone 165), and his favourite bus journey is the 17 from north Manchester into the city centre.