London-based designer/artist and part-time lecturer at Central Saint Martins, Luise Vormittag has a diverse background having trained as a graphic designer, photographer, illustrator, theorist and fine artist. This has allowed her to work across a number of different disciplines, which she continues to do to this day.
Luise enjoys working collaboratively and has done so on several occasions between 2002 and 2014 where she practiced under the company name of Container. She continues to collaborate with other artists along with undertaking commissions.
Luise’s part-time involvement as a lecturer at Central Saint Martins provides her with the opportunity to use her design and artistic flair to teach graduate and post-graduate students as part of the Graphic Communication Design program. This is just one of the roles she plays in the program. Thanks to the invaluable support of Central Saint Martins Luise has also been able to work closely with Vital Arts and Barts Health NHS Turst to develop a project funded by AHRC.
During the years 2011 through to 2014 Luise developed The Expanded Designer module for design students at Camberwell College of Arts.
Luise Vormittag’s credentials include:
BA (Hons) Graphic Design (2002) University of Arts London
MA Aesthetics and Art Theory (2004) Middlesex University
PGCert Learning and Teaching Art and Design (2011)
Began undertaking study towards a practice-based PhD at London College of Communication, UAL in October 2015.
Luise Vormittag is a successful businesswoman, having run her own business for a great many years. Her numerous clients, both national and international have included Volkswagen, MTV, Selfridges and the V&A, where she has used her experience and skill as a designer, artist and illustrator. For the Volkswagen project Luise and her business partner Nicola Carter were required to decorate 4 rooms. The pair chose to use playing cards as a theme in order to have the rooms tell a story.
Her more recent projects have been within the healthcare sector where she has worked closely with patient and community groups. One such project is the creation of the Community Dialysis Cookbook, in which Luise collaborated with Rachel Louis to interview patients undergoing dialysis treatments. While the project initially began with an idea to improve the surroundings of dialysis patients it became clear that this was going to be extremely difficult. It was discovered that patients care about the well-being of each other and other kidney disease patients and were willing to share their recipes and personal stories with the two women. Although the recipes had to go through a series of tests and be analyzed by dieticians eventually the community of patients and staff, along with Luise and Rachel were able to create a cookbook that would be of use to all dialysis patients.
As well as Luise’s teaching and commissioned works she has also delivered a number of conference presentations highlighting the overlap between sociopolitical issues and design practice. She has also written articles on the same subject. One of her articles titled ‘Making (the) subject matter: Illustration as interactive, collaborative practice’ was published in Volume 1 Issue 1 of the Journal of Illustration.
Luise was recently active at the kidney-friendly recipe swap held at the Tate Exchange in London, where she reported that it was a “grt success” (Twitter). Luise’s Public Realm piece on Rebecca Davies’ Oasis Social Club was published in Varoom 35 – The Storytelling Issue February 2017.
Luise has a ‘can do’ attitude that has often landed her on projects with extremely tight deadlines but instead of declining she rolls up her sleeves and draws on all of her extensive knowledge and experience of design and art to create something spectacular.