Alex
Cooper interview- letterpress technician
Interviewer:
What’s your
name, age and the year you entered LCC?
Alex
Cooper:
I’m Alex
Cooper, letterpress technician and I am 40 and I entered in 2000.
Interviewer:
So you must
have some vivid memories of when you first entered?
Alex
Cooper:
Yes I did yes.
Interviewer:
Because we
got the year 2000 and our teacher wanted us to focus on that year and we asked
other people and they couldn’t remember so it’s nice.
Interviewer:
So why did
you choose to come to LCC? Like what appealed to you about LCC at that time
period?
Alex
Cooper:
Well I came
back as a mature student in 2000 okay and then I started working here in 2004.
Um… and I think it was I never wanted to sit in front of a mac. I came to when
I graduated I never thought that I could spend the rest of my career in a
studio environment I came from a background of making things carpentry things
like that. It was the facilities that that it wasn’t all computer based, I
could use screen-printing, black and white photography, etching processes,
letterpress. You know that was my interest in making as well as designing and
the college had all those facilities and I knew about the History of LCP and I
was very into the print processes so it made sense that I came to the, what it
was originally a technical college for instruction of print processes. And it’s
quite funny now as I run obviously the letterpress department. Every Cab driver
in London, when you talk to a cab driver seems to know where LCP was, was
educated at LCP alright so you got quite a few cab drivers and taxi drivers
that cant believe that we’re still using letterpress and a lot of them were
trained here.
Interviewer:
But now
they’re cab drivers not everyone’s a technician like you!
Alex
Cooper:
The thing
is, yeah cause you know what this areas is one of 6 rooms that they had in the
college of different sort of, there was the Ludlow machine, all the lino type
machines. It started with hand setting and then it went on and on and on and it
had to speed up and things like that. The process had to be sped up from hand
setting to typing out on a keyboard, casting type, casting lines of type, photo
setting all these processes to keep up with technology. So this was the change
but spaces are premium at the college, we’re getting more and more students,
more and more studio spaces than needed and they very slowly threw out area per
area. And I think in 2004 this area was going to be thrown away. It was part of
the school of printing and publishing so then you didn’t just have media
school and design school you had printing and publishing. I can’t remember what
the others were called; there were 4 schools originally. But it was just unused
over near the library so they moved it- school of graphics design took it over.
People like Alan kitching, Calvin Smith all saved the area and then I’ve been
working here as a student intensively …
Interviewer:
So you were
campaigning to save the area?
Alex
Cooper:
Yeah
exactly you know and its growing and when in 2004 when I got the job, I think
it was January 2004 so I interviewed for the job, got the job and we literally
had to drag people through the door because people were going ‘why do I have to
use this’ you know things like that.
Interviewer:
So back
then people wanted to like more on with technology and they didn’t really
appreciate letterpress?
Alex
Cooper:
No no and
it didn’t have a technician and people were setting and we still got a
considerable amount of type to put back but very slowly each year we’re getting
the workshop in a better situation/ condition. And we’re struggling to deal
with the amount of students that want to use the area; which is a really good
position to be in. but it started off as a tool for teaching typography a lot
of these skills can be transferred onto the Mac cause there’s no careers in
letterpress anymore and we had had people say ‘oh what’s the point when you
cant get a job in it’ but its skills that transfer and you’re at college you
should be trying all these different things. Cause the majority of you
will end up sitting in front of a mac so you got to push the boundaries for
what you can do. You can use it in a traditional way, you can use it in a
experimental way. Illustration students using it, interacting moving students,
film students, things like that. But in terms of the wider thing of the
college was, what I loved about it was the community. I had some great times
here, the bars were much better then, it used to be all painted red, really
dark…
Interviewer:
Was that
when you first came?
Alex
Cooper:
When I
first came and it was all painted red. I would always remember they had these
big round tables that were wobbly like this. It was a really great environment
to come down. For me anyways college isn’t just about what you learn in the
workshops, isn’t what you learn in the studios; alright the play a big part but
its in the people that you mean, the experience you have and you’ve really got
to sort of immerse yourself in the whole experience…
Scott and
tony upstairs, I haven’t done an official apprenticeship but they have so
they’ve had 20 years working in industry before they even came here. So at 16
they signed up to a print finishing company, a printing company, did their 6-year
apprenticeships and then worked in industry and they passed all that knowledge
on and that’s what I liked about the college when I walked round and first had
a look. There were older guys with all this experience and you think I can just
tap all that experience off them.
Interviewer:
So did LCC
have a strong link with the industry back then?
Alex
Cooper:
Yeah, even
still to the extent that the press upstairs; the Heidelberg is donated by
Heidelberg. They sponsor it to get students…
When did
those printers came along, have they been here for over 10 years?
Alex
Cooper:
Oh yeah
Just in
general with the year 2000 was there any memorable event that stood out to you,
it doesn’t have to be necessarily about art or LCC but just like what was
happening around the world?
Alex
Cooper:
I really
cant recall (that was a while ago, 13 years ago I’ve been lucky because I’ve
had some great experiences with the college and the fact that we’ve been sent
abroad to the state to Europe to work to speak about what we do. It’s a bit of
a blur to tell you the truth, it a good place to work. Basically it’s the
students that make that because every year you get somebody who really
challenges you everyday. I don’t know whether that could be done but we can try
it and that’s the rewarding thing about the job. But something specific about
the 2000 I can’t really remember.
Interviewer:
How big was
your class back then because now we have a class of almost 200 people?
Alex
Cooper:
Right well
it used to be different because they used to have pathways. What used to
happen, I studied on a course that was called typographic design and there was
information design and there was illustration and those pathways grew to
include advertising, design for advertising; but its more social advertising
rather than hard-core advertising you know- social awareness and things like
that.
‘Its more
like flight the hunger’ or something like that?’ yeah, (that’s really good)
Siân Cook
used to run that course; I believe she was a signatory on the second first
things first manifesto. So Siân has got… I think she has taught at Ravensbourne
all these sorts of colleges. And there was interactive moving image came along…
Interviewer:
Did these
pathways get cancelled just a few years ago?
Alex
Cooper:
Last year
was the last year and it was very sad to see.
Interviewer:
How comes
they decided to change though?
Alex
Cooper:
I’m not
going to answer that one (school politics) no, yeah you can image a place this
size there is an element of politics and I was sad to see cause it was my
course as well so it was sad to see your course going. But I had a great
experience; it was a sort of life changing experience actually coming here as I
came from this sort of carpentry background etc. and building background to
coming back to college. I first went and did my foundation fair few years
before, went to a college and hated it. I didn’t want to do design anymore then
decided to come back to my studies and then it was a life-changing event. I met
my wife here, in LCC when I was a student. I got my job here , working here is
something I’m very passionate about. So LCC…LCP I should say was a life
changing expertise for me really.
Interviewer:
When did
LCP change to LCC?
Alex
Cooper:
If you go
on UAL website go on the London college of communication part of it and they
used to have the whole history. Obviously we’re been here for 50 years, this
came out of the London St. brides library, printing library, which is just off
a fleet street. That’s a great resource for you to use; free library, old wood
specimen books, really beautiful books, and great resource there. We’ve got
some great links with St. brides- we grew out od St. brides but another
interesting thing about the college was that they was called the London college
of printing distribute of trades and it was a technical college for printers
but what it also did was they had courses like flower arranging and courses
like window dressing and how to arrange butchery in a butchers window and it
was all these trade, it was a trade school really.
Yeah it
sort of absorbed all these other courses and maybe there is something to be
read about that, as I quite like a story.
