Brian Cairns
Brian Cairns
- Senior Lecturer / Programme Leader, Master of Design in Communication Design
- ORCID
https://orcid.org/0009-0006-6993-329X- Job Title
- Senior Lecturer / Programme Leader, Master of Design in Communication Design
- School or Academic Area
- School of Design
- School or Academic Area Supervised for
- UNSPECIFIED
- B.Cairns@gsa.ac.uk
- Professional Address
- Department of Communication Design, 167 Renfrew Street, Glasgow. G3 6RQ
- Country
- Scotland, United Kingdom
Biography
Brian Cairns (b.1965, Paisley, UK) lives and works in Glasgow. Cairns is a Senior Lecturer and the Programme Leader for the Master of Design in Communication Design programme and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). His experience as an Educator in Higher Education spans 35 years, both in the UK and internationally. He is frequently invited to serve as an external examiner and to contribute to the revalidation of programmes at national art institutions in the UK. He is a member of the Illustration Educators.
His research is focused on Practice-led research, exploring materiality, craft and analogue processes, including Illustration, Print, Drawing, Printmaking, and Photography. Cairns leads the School of Design 'PRINT' research cluster.
Published papers and conference presentations include Confia (International Conference on Illustration and Animation, Portugal), 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2025, ICON (Illustration Conference, USA), 2014, 2024 and iJade (International Journal of Art & Design
Research Interests
Practice-led research, exploring materiality, craft and analogue processes, including Illustration, Print, Drawing, Printmaking, and Photography. Cairns leads the School of Design 'PRINT' research cluster.
Latest Additions
- Cairns, Brian (2025) Small Print. New Glasgow Society, 1307 Argyle Street, Glasgow, Scotland, 15 August - 17 August 2025
- Cairns, Brian (2025) Small Print Exhibition.
- Cairns, Brian (2025) A Critically Reflective Practice. In: Confia 2025: 12th International Conference on Illustration & Animation. Instituto Politécnico do Cávado e do Ave, Vila Do Conde, Portugal, pp. 369-377. ISBN 9789893533185
- Cairns, Brian (2025) Caseroom Letterpress Print.
- Cairns, Brian, Pickstone, Edwin, Hogg, Ross, Stark, Andy, Locke, Peter, Farrar, David and Kirkby, Ruth (2023) Offset Research Cluster Work in Progress Exhibition. CassArt, 63 - 67 Queen Street, Glasgow G1 3EN, 16- 24 Sept 2023
- Cairns, Brian (2021) Adapting a Strategy of Cultural Inclusion in a Pandemic A Case Study in Agile Adaptation. In: Confia 2021: 9th International Conference on Illustration & Animation. Institutio Politécnico do Cávado e do Ave, Barcelos, Portugal, pp. 266-276. ISBN 9789895493968
- Cairns, Brian (2021) Adapting a Strategy of Cultural Inclusion in a Pandemic: A Case Study in Agile Adaptation. In: CONFIA 2021: 9th International Conference on Illustration & Animation. Instituto Politécnico do Cávado e do Ave, Aveiro, Portugal, pp. 266-276. ISBN 978-989-54939-6-8
- Cairns, Brian (2020) The Value of the Handmade in a Digital World. In: Confia 2020: 8th International Conference on Illustration and Animation, 23-24 October. Instituto Politécnico do Cávado e do Ave, Barcelos, Portugal, pp. 29-46. ISBN 978-989-54939-0-6
- Zeegan, Lawrence and Cairns, Brian [contributor] (2020) The Fundamentals of Illustration, 3rd Edition. Bloomsbury, London. ISBN 9781474240390
- Zeegen, Lawrence and Cairns, Brian (2020) The Fundamentals of Illustration. In: The Fundamentals of Illustration (3rd Edition). Bloomsbury, London, p. 79. ISBN 978-1-4742-4039-0
