Sophie Beard

Dr Sophie Beard BA (Hons) MA (RCA) PhD FHEA

Deputy Head School of Design

Sophie Beard is a designer, educator and researcher. She graduated with BA (Hons) Graphic Design at Central Saint Martins in 1998 and MA in Communication Art & Design from the Royal College of Art in 2002. In 2010 Beard completed her UAL funded practice-based PhD, entitled ‘Collecting Collects: The Family Photograph in the British Newspaper’ at LCC (UAL).

Beard has extensive teaching experience of working in higher education in both studio and theory delivery at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Currently she holds the role of Deputy Head, at the School of Design, University of Greenwich, Interim Academic Portfolio Lead for Design Anthropology (April - Oct 2023) and currently, Interim Academic Portfolio Lead for Landscape Architecture & Urbanism (Jan 2024 – present). She is on the Steering Committee for the UoG New Research Centre for Spatial and Digital Ecologies and Lead
Investigator on Centre Press https://www.centrepress.org/

Design

Responsibilities within the university
  • Deputy Head School of Design
  • Interim Academic Portfolio Lead for Landscape Architecture and Urbanism
  • A member of the Steering Committee for the New Research Centre for Spatial and Digital Ecologies.
  • Module Leader, MA Design - Social Engagement and Professional Practice

Awards

2002 University of the Arts Postgraduate Research Studentship Award

Recognition
  • External Examiner for BA (Hons) Media and Communication Design, Macromedia University, Berlin (2020-24)
  • External Examiner for MA Illustration & Visual Media, London College of Communication (UAL), London (2019-23)
  • External Examiner for BA (Hons) Illustration & Visual Media, London College of Communication (UAL), London (2018-23)
  • External Academic Advisor for the Validation of the BA Information & Interface Design, London College of Communication (UAL), London (2014-15)

Research / Scholarly interests

Beard has published and exhibited internationally, and her research lies within the field of Visual Communication. She is particularly interested in Vernacular Photography and its Practices, Material Culture, and the methodological approach of The Archive and Act of Collecting.

She is co-founder of Collectarium, a publishing platform that engages audiences in new ways of seeing through participatory and collective design https://collectarium.co.uk/

She is the Project Lead for Centre Press; an experimental research project which explores the act of publishing https://www.centrepress.org/

Media activity
  • Beard, S. & Waller, A. (2020) Collectarium Interview with Joe Talbot talking about Lockdown Masks Project. BBC Radio Sussex
  • Beard, S. & Waller, A. (2020) Collectarium Interview with Lesley McCabe talking about Lockdown Masks Project. BBC Radio Surrey

Recent publications

Exhibition:

  • Beard, S. & Waller, A. & Maloney, P. (2024) ‘Collectarium Lockdown Space’: Now Play This 2024, Liminal; Playing Between Worlds’, Sommerset House, London https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/now-play-this-2024
  • Beard, S. & Waller, A. (2023) ‘How Do You Feel?’, Phoenix Art Space, Brighton

Publication:

  • Beard, S. & Waller, A. (2022) ‘Collectarium Lockdown Masks’, Collectarium, London, ISBN 978-1-3999-3381-0

Article:

  • Beard, S. (2020) ‘The First and Last Picture - The Temporality of the Family Photograph’ Journal: Rundbrief Fotografi e –Vol. 27 (2020), No. 1 [N.F. 105]

Presentations
  • Beard, S. & Waller, A. ‘Publishing Participation’. (2023) Structures of Community Symposium, as part of the Resolve Collective Residency, co-hosted by the Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics, University of Brighton, CCA Gallery, Brighton https://brightoncca.art/event/structures-of-community/
  • Beard, S. & Waller, A, & Maloney, P. (2021) ‘Collectarium Lockdown Space: Sharing domestic transformations and innovations for pandemics.’ Urban Assemblage: The City as Architecture, Media, AI and Big Data, Amps. University of Hertfordshire