Developments in art education at North Staffordshire Polytechnic
In 1973 the departments of Graphic Design and Three-Dimensional Design (the latter being the renamed Department of Ceramics) combined their resources to offer a new and unique course in Multidisciplinary Design. This concept of multidisciplinary design echoed much of the philosophy of the Bauhaus of the 1920s and 1930s. Students were able to choose from a range of design subject areas and to combine them in solving design problems often located in the local community. The design disciplines available then were: typography; illustration, scientific & medical illustration; photography; audio-visual communication; textiles; industrial ceramics; ceramic sculpture; glass; silverware & jewellery; and product design.
In the early 1970s, the Department of the History of Art & Design and Complementary Studies was established. Again this was forward-looking in establishing the study of the history of art and design as an academic discipline in its own right.
In the early seventies research into letterform design for cathode ray tubes was carried out in collaboration with International Computers Limited (ICL) in Kidsgrove by staff and students in the Department of Graphic Design, North Staffordshire Polytechnic. In the same period collaborative research into computer-assisted typesetting was carried out with The Monotype Corporation.
By the end of the 1970s both design departments (Graphic Design and Three-Dimensional Design) were actively involved in many aspects of information technology and computing applied to design. In this particular application of computers, the departments were pioneers and among the first in the country. In 1982 the Department of Trade and Industry sponsored an exhibition (IT82) outlining the advantages of computing and information technology for industry. The design departments were successful in persuading the DTI to locate this travelling exhibition on the College Road campus – the only visit for the north Midlands. The pioneering in the applications of computing to Design was to lead to the development of the first BTEC course in Multimedia Design. In conjunction with the Department of Computing, the first degree course in Interactive Systems Design in the United Kingdom was developed.
In the 1980s the design departments became involved in research for the computer-aided design of ceramic shapes using solid modelling techniques, and surface pattern designs using advanced computer graphics. The experience gained in this area was to be used in the early planning of the Hothouse Design Centre located in Longton.
Stoke-on-Trent is a city and unitary authority area in Staffordshire, England, with an area of 36 square miles (93 km2). In 2022, the city had an estimated population of 259,965. It is the largest settlement in Staffordshire and is surrounded by the towns of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Alsager, Kidsgrove and Biddulph, which form a conurbation around the city.
Susan Vera Cooper OBE was a prolific English ceramic designer working in the Stoke-on-Trent pottery industries from the 1920s to the 1980s.
Hanley is one of the six towns that, along with Burslem, Longton, Fenton, Tunstall and Stoke-upon-Trent, amalgamated to form the City of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. The town is the main business, commercial and cultural hub of the wider Potteries area.
Staffordshire University is a public research university in Staffordshire, England. It has one main campus based in the city of Stoke-on-Trent and four other campuses; in Stafford, Lichfield, Shrewsbury and London.
The Staffordshire Potteries is the industrial area encompassing the six towns Burslem, Fenton, Hanley, Longton, Tunstall and Stoke in Staffordshire, England. North Staffordshire became a centre of ceramic production in the early 17th century, due to the local availability of clay, salt, lead and coal.
Burslem is one of the six towns that along with Hanley, Tunstall, Fenton, Longton and Stoke-upon-Trent form part of the city of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. It is often referred to as the "mother town" of Stoke on Trent. The population of the town was included under the Burslem Central ward and had a population of 6,490 in the 2021 Census.
Charlotte Rhead was an English ceramics designer active in the 1920s and the 1930s in the Potteries area of Staffordshire.
Longton is one of the six towns which amalgamated to form the county borough of Stoke-on-Trent in 1910, along with Hanley, Tunstall, Fenton, Burslem and Stoke-upon-Trent in Staffordshire, England.
Royal Doulton is an English ceramic and home accessories manufacturer that was founded in 1815. Operating originally in Vauxhall, London, and later moving to Lambeth, in 1882 it opened a factory in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, in the centre of English pottery. From the start, the backbone of the business was a wide range of utilitarian wares, mostly stonewares, including storage jars, tankards and the like, and later extending to drain pipes, lavatories, water filters, electrical porcelain and other technical ceramics. From 1853 to 1901, its wares were marked Doulton & Co., then from 1901, when a royal warrant was given, Royal Doulton.
Burslem School of Art was an art school in the centre of the town of Burslem in the Potteries district of England. Students from the school played an important role in the local pottery industry. Pottery was made on the site of the school from the early Middle Ages. The venue was refurbished and re-opened for the arts in 1999.
Lorna Bailey is an English potter and businesswoman.
Frederick Alfred Rhead (1856–1933) was a potter working in North Staffordshire, England. He is not to be confused with his son Frederick Hurten Rhead (1880–1942) who was also a potter, and who worked mainly in the USA. His other children included the pottery designer Charlotte Rhead.
Marc-Louis-Emmanuel Solon, pseudonym Miles, was a French porcelain artist. After beginning his career at the Sèvres Pottery, he moved to Stoke-on-Trent in 1870 to work at Mintons Ltd, where he became the leading exponent of the technique of ceramic decoration called pâte-sur-pâte. His work commanded high prices in the late Victorian period.
The federation of Stoke-on-Trent was the 1910 amalgamation of the six Staffordshire Potteries towns of Burslem, Tunstall, Stoke-upon-Trent, Hanley, Fenton and Longton into the single county borough of Stoke-on-Trent. The federation was one of the largest mergers of local authorities, involving the greatest number of previously separate urban authorities, to take place in England between the nineteenth century and the 1960s. The 1910 federation was the culmination of a process of urban growth and municipal change that started in the early 19th century.
Gordon Mitchell Forsyth (1879–1952) was a Scottish ceramic designer and fine artist and art education innovator.
Reginald George Haggar (1905–1988), R.I., A.R.C.A., F.R.S.A., was a British ceramic designer. He was born in Ipswich and studied at the Ipswich School of Art and the Royal College of Art. In 1929, he became an assistant designer at Mintons Pottery in Stoke-on-Trent, rising to art director six months later, a post he held until 1939. Working in watercolors and ceramics, his designs reflected both the radical and lyrical elements of the Art Deco style.
The Potteries Electric Traction Company operated a tramway service in The Potteries between 1899 and 1928.
Flux Stoke-on-Trent is a spin-out company from Staffordshire University. Located in Stoke-on-Trent, traditional centre of the English pottery industry, it produces decorated bone china tableware that is manufactured in the city and primarily designed by students on its ceramics master's degree programme.
The North Staffordshire Tramways operated a steam tramway service from 1881 to 1898 in the Staffordshire Potteries area.
Colin Melbourne was an English sculptor, ceramicist, painter and academic. He is known particularly for several statues that stand in various locations in Stoke-on-Trent.
