This month, RuTC's Graphics and Illustration alumni, Tom Box, came back into the college to give a talk about a future in animation and graphic design to interested A Level Architecture and Graphics & Illustration students.
Tom studied Art and Illustration during his time with us and in 1997, he went onto study computer visualisation and animation at Bournemouth University.
Whilst in his final year at university in 2000, Tom met Oli Hyatt and Adam Shaw and together they founded Blue Zoo Animation.
Since their very first project for CBeebies, 'Blue Cow' which ran for a whopping 200 episodes, Blue Zoo has gone on to become one of the UK's leading animation studios, producing some of the most well-loved kids shows on TV, award –winning commercials and more.
As well as winning a host of animation awards, Blue Zoo has twice won the BAFTA for Independent Production Company of The Year and is a proud winner of the Best Places to Work in TV survey three times running, by Broadcast and Best Companies Group.
Tim Pond, Graphics and Illustration teacher at RuTC who taught Tom during his time as a student, was excited to welcome him back to meet his current students who he knew would be inspired by Tom's aspirational journey since leaving college.
Tim says, “It was wonderful to see Tom again, he has worked extremely hard to achieve the career he has and it is very well-deserved.
“He was always a creative student with lots of ambition and is a very inspirational person for my students to meet and learn from. Blue Zoo animation is a giant in the UK animation industry and my students learned a lot from speaking to him.”
Learn more about studying Graphics and Illustration at RuTC here.
Learn about Tom's business, Blue Zoo here.