Tobias Svensén

University lecturer. I have had work experiences as a graphic designer and art director since late 1990s.

Education:

• Business Administration, Marketing, and Human Geography/Cultural Geography Courses at the University of Kalmar, Kalmar, Sweden

• Graphic design at Berghs School of Communication, Stockholm, Sweden

• Bachelor of Fine Arts in Design at the University of Kalmar, Kalmar, Sweden

• Two-year Master of Arts in Graphic Design (Distinction Award) at the University of Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire, UK

Teaching

My teaching focuses on visual communication (mainly graphic design and typography), and more specifically, it includes design activism, sustainability, and how visual communication affects stereotypes, prejudices and stigmatisation.

Research

Recent projects:

A project in graphic design focusing on mental illness with the aim to explore how graphic design can facilitate:
• work as support before, during and after ERP treatment (Exposure and Response Prevention) and increase the possibility of information processing in people with OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder). This project resulted in two books - one book focused on the individual and one focused on relatives.
The graphic design of the books was based on a reinterpretation and adaptation of the Dutch Benedictine monk and architect Hans van der Laan's architectural measurement system "plastic number".

• Article based on a multimodal critical discourse analysis of how image agency images move between contexts as part of its business model and how image agency images and their visual expression, mainly based on the viewer's perspective, can reinforce prejudices regarding mental illness.

Commissions

Programme Leader for the program Advertising, graphic design and visual communication (2010–2014)

Programme Leader for the Visual Communication + Change BFA (2015–2016).

Director of Studies (2015–2017, and 2022–)

Education planner / Staff planner (2015–2017, and 2021–)