GraphicsRCA: Fifty Years and Beyond celebrates the milestone anniversary of a graphic design course at the RCA that marked the beginning of a break with commercial art, and heralded an era that saw graphic design emerge as a major force in business and culture

Ground Floor, Building 6, Dubai Design District (d3)

Curated by Teal Triggs, Richard Doust, Jeff Willis, Adrian Shaughnessy

GraphicsRCA: Fifty Years and Beyond celebrates the milestone anniversary of a graphic design course at the RCA that marked the beginning of a break with commercial art, and heralded an era that saw graphic design emerge as a major force in business and culture. Over the past half century, the RCA has produced a range of innovative practices that celebrate the designer as theorist, author, researcher and collaborator.

The exhibition features rarely seen works from the RCA archive, including designs by alumni who have gone on to become leading practitioners; Film Society Posters; stamps commissioned by the Royal Mail; the infamous student magazine Ark; typographic experiments; and early examples from pioneers of digital design. The exhibition opened in London in 2014, travelling to the National Museum of the Republic in Brasilia in 2015. This expanded exhibition features new works by recent graduates and over 120 designers with works ranging from printed posters and books to moving images and digital projection.

About the curators

GraphicsRCA50+ is the product of a team collaboration led by four primary curators from the Royal College of Art with assistance from their current students and alumni. Professor Teal Triggs is Associate Dean, School of Communication, RCA, and a design writer and historian; Richard Doust is a graduate of the RCA (1963) and guardian of the GraphicsRCA archive; Jeff Willis is a graduate of the RCA (1984) and visiting tutor for MA Visual Communication; and Adrian Shaughnessy is a design writer, publisher and visiting tutor for MA Visual Communication.