www.jonwallwork.co.uk
Jon
JON WALLWORK was born in Cheshire in 1950 and after secondary education opted to study for a degree in the Arts. Sculpture in glass and ceramics was fascinating and absorbing but ultimately, not for Jon as he could not foresee a life wedded to the potter’s wheel or the glassmaker’s furnace. With the UK in the midst of recession and the family business under threat of foreclosure – suffering along with much of the UK’s heavy industry – he chose to pursue a Master’s Degree in Industrial Design. This effectively caused a step back from the “designer maker” approach to the concept designer turning his hand to a wider variety of creative challenges.
Challenges there were in the 1970’s for many freshly qualified young adults but eventually he found himself working for an agency that specialised in components supplied to the perfumery and pharmaceutical industries. This involved structural packaging in glass, metals and plastics, dispensing systems, closures and decorating techniques. With a varied client base the work ranged from the clinically cool pharmaceutical to the more luxurious, aspirational and decorative perfumery brands.
There often comes a point when the idea of starting one’s own business is just irresistible but it’s always a leap into the unknown. For Jon that point came in the late 1980’s. The design industry was just beginning to make its first, furtive steps into using computers but for most it was the iconic Rotring pen, the drawing board, markers and layout pads.
The dawning of the digital age brought new challenges not least of which was learning the new technology. Within a few years the production and implementation of design had altered radically and ironically this brought with it some interesting projects. On many occasions Jon found himself troubleshooting designs that had been computer prepared elsewhere, but with scant or no knowledge of production processes. It was like having one foot in the old world and one foot in the new, and this skill became central to his consultancy’s attributes.
In spite of living in the 21st century many of our technologies are rooted in the 20th, the 19th or even earlier and an appreciation of those techniques and processes are vital to practical design solutions.
During the 90’s Jon joined several Trade Missions to the Far East, was runner up in a Japanese design competition participated in a Designer Exchange programme in Korea and forged commercial ties with companies in China and Singapore. He realised early on that China was set to become the world’s workshop and now often has designs produced in the PRoC.
It was during this time that he was introduced to the art of Tai Chi Chuan, and here’s an irony. Tai Chi (supreme ultimate) is based upon the theory of Yin and Yang as exemplified in the Book of Changes (I Ching). When the Jesuit Father Joachim Bouvet wrote to Gotfried Leibnitz describing this book, Leibnitz recognised representations of his initial work on binary digits and this, in 1705. This system is the fundamental building block of today's computer systems which all work on the binary system. These computers, through the use of the binary system (aka western Yin-Yang notation) are now able to simulate the real world, which in turn lends credence to the Chinese theory that the perceivable universe can be explained using the interaction of Yin and Yang.
Based in London, Jon can be contacted by email: jw@jonwallwork.co.uk
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