Iain Morrison is a graphic designer and photographer with over thirty six years’ commercial and higher education experience.
Prior to joining Gray's School of Art, he worked as graphic designer in Glasgow and as a photographer in Aberdeen, and this grounding in professional practice allows him to provide an informed viewpoint on issues of communication design for the students, while embedding the need for a commercial focus in higher education setting.
He joined Gray’s as an Applications Supervisor in 1995, developing training material to assist staff and students with using the software and hardware available in the school.
Through developing learning material for the school he eventually gained the role of ‘Learning Enhancement Coordinator’ where he used his commercial experience to develop a Personal Professional Development (PPD) programme for the school.
During this time, he also studied part time to gain a Master’s in Design with merit in 2011. His masters documented the visual history of Crathes Castle, and this visual data was presented through information graphics. Images from his master’s would go onto win the National Trust for Scotland’s Emerging Artist Award. https://crathescastle.weebly.com
He became a lecturer in Communication Design joining the first year team in 2015 and continued his studies to gain a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2018.
Iain is currently the Stage 4 Coordinator for the BA (Hons) Communication Design course and a MA Specialist Subject Tutor.
Currently Iain’s personal research has focused on developing a set of information graphics posters to documents Scotland’s goals towards Achieving Net Zero in 2045. The posters are designed to introduce and engage secondary school pupils in the many topics involved in Scotland’s plans for 2045.
This project has been developed in collaboration with Professor James Njuguna, Director of Research and Innovation at the National Sub Sea Centre, Aberdeen and the School of Engineering, Robert Gordon University .
The posters developed for Achieving Net Zero, align to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) shown on this page.
He has also worked with Dr Chris Freemantle, Research Fellow at Gray’s to assist him on a research project he was developing which looked at Land Use for Net Zero schemes. Iain's part in the project was to create information graphics to visualise the research outcomes.
Iain is currently the Stage 4 Coordinator for BA(Hons) Communication Design at Gray’s School of Art. He also teaches on the Stage 2 and 3 levels of the course while also supporting students as a postgraduate tutor on the schools MA in Design.
During his time as an academic he has also submitted the following papers to the conferences noted below:
“Blending traditional & digital design skills to develop professional practice” at QAA 3rd International Enhancement in Higher Education Conference, Glasgow.
“Developing PPD within Gray’s with Student Partners” at RGU’s Teaching and Learning Conference.
“Developing and disseminating software skills whilst making it both accessible & stimulating” at RGU’s Teaching and Learning Conference. This also won the ‘Best Paper’ award.
