Some moons ago, when I was working for peanuts and chained to the bottom rung of the ladder of career goals, I decided to inject a bit of modernism into the graphics for a particularly hideous finance presentation.
I had been given a fantastic book on Paul Rand – the American graphic designer who along with my other massive favourite – Alvin Lustig – reached their peak, I feel, in their book jacket design.

Anyways, here is little old me, typing away and trying to wake people up after a long lunch and so I became very inspired to take the design ethos and aesthetic of these two masters and apply them to my administrative work.

The problem with this? Far too enjoyable. I began papering walls, noticeboards, getting out the paint and glue and generally stepping on toes because nothing screams, ‘please tap me on the back and promote me into a more creative role’ than applying mid-twentieth century design to a PowerPoint.
Did it work? Nah. Was I cross? Sort of..but extremely grateful for educating myself to the possibilities. Check them out, the filing can wait. Spend a glorious afternoon Googling images and I promise that Ariel 12 point and generic templates will never look the same again.
Here ends your tutorial for this week.
Dolly
Senior Tutor, Artistypist and Vice-Chancellor’s Fool
University of Admin, Narragonia
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