Neville Brody is an English graphic designer, graduate of the London College of Painting and has been announced to be the new Head of the Communication Art & Design department at the Royal College of Art. He is well known for his work on “The Face” magazine as well as designing for varies record covers and film artwork such as Oceans 11 & 12.

Design is an important part of Contemporary Artwork and Neville Brody plays a large part in this as a graphic designer. His work was greatly influenced by punk rock in the 1970s and was not received well by his tutors. He questioned traditional techniques of graphic design and social ethics by doing different things such as putting the Queens’ head sideways on a postage stamp design. Other influences he was motivated by were Dadaism and pop art which are very evident throughout his work as many resemble collage like work as well as the bold colours and design.

One piece of work I found stood out and spoke to me was his Freedom poster. It says boldly “Free Me From Freedom” which plays on irony. In today’s society we have freedom, we are not particularly restricted to what we do to an extent yet everywhere we go there is some sort of CCTV, we are constantly being monitored. In London alone, a single person will cross the lens of a security camera over 400 times in a day. Glasgow itself has become a “Big Brother” state with 408 cameras. I totally agree with Brody that “constant surveillance perhaps inhibits, rather than encourages, free expression.” I feel Brody’s work speaks to the public as it stands out which it should; it encourages the public to think about what goes on in their world.