This year’s winner of the Gane Travel Scholarship at UWE Creative Industries is Oliver Gabe, a 2nd year graphic design student, focussing on type and print.

Oliver overcomes the odds

Oliver will travel to Melbourne, Australia, visiting a number of design studios and focussing his research on AGDA, the Australian Graphic Design Association.

One of the outstanding aspects of the proposal is that Oliver has researched 12 Individual Design studios and made 12 applications for a work placement individually tailored to each studio, each in the form of a small, well designed booklet, one of which he enclosed with his application.

Oliver also plans to set up a Student Design Council when he returns and will be liaising with the AGDA Victorian Student Council to discuss their history and organisation to help him establish a similar council. He will also link up with Paul Gough, former Dean of the Art School who recently moved to RMIT in Melbourne as Pro Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President. Paul will help him make connections and extend his research during his stay.

Amazingly, Oliver worked for 48 hours nonstop to redo his application after his house was burgled the day before the Scholarship submission deadline. All his work was stolen, with his lap top, hard drive, and digital camera. Oliver still borrowed a friend’s laptop and re-wrote his application from memory: easier than it might have been as he had been working on it for six weeks and consulting his tutors about it regularly.