In this week’s edition of PSFK’s series of ‘Creatives of the Week’ chosen from ARTS THREAD’s visual communication graduate portfolios, the spotlight falls on Sam Smith, a 2011 graduate of Winchester School of Art. Read the interview here.

The University of the Arts London unveiled their Future Map 11 exhibition yesterday at the Zabludowicz Collection. Featuring 30 of the most ‘cutting edge’ talent from 2011′s graduates. ARTS THREAD takes a look at a handful of the best creatives on show.

“The final year students of Visual Communication in 2011 have set a staggeringly high bar of achievement with their enquiring, challenging, and intelligent approach to graphic design practice,” says Gene Bawden, Course Coordinator for Visual Communication at Monash University. Typography, branding, image, colour and narrative were just some of the elements that students were encouraged to employ and master in their work to communicate effectively.

The thirty-plus degree Melbourne weather did not deter revelers from joining the celebration at RMIT’s Graphic Design Diploma graduate show, Absorb and Reflect.

The Advertising department of Les Arts Décoratifs dedicates its key showspace this winter to the Austrian graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister.

ARTS THREAD highlights the student and graduate events on show starting this Saturday at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven. Our reporter Like van Wijck will be out and about in the city to tell us what’s happening.

Design is actually a question of taste and is developed through our natural ability to know when something looks both right and wrong. Nevertheless, there are those, understandably, who believe it can be taught and go to great lengths to do so. Sometimes, as in the case of Dennis M. Puhallam, they go further and write a graphic style manual.

It was ‘all about the girls’ in East London on Friday as several of the area’s most exciting female-led graphic design studios opened their doors for a new, inspired concept for London Design Festival – the Graphic Design Walk.

This year Outline Editions has invited the ‘ingenious and award winning graphic artist Noma Bar to create a one-man show.’ The result is ‘Cut it Out’, a giant dog shaped embossing device. Specially commissioned, this interactive art-making machine can be used by visitors who wish to create their own cut-out Noma Bar images.

The diverse and ever-shifting boundaries of Graphic Design are examined and explored at the Graphic Design Museum’s latest unique exhibition.