Creative Thursday Nomad RDC

This week's Creative Thursday interview is with multidisciplinary design creatives Nomad RDC who are based in "The Bungo".

SSH: What do you do?We are a bit unique, we take a people centered approach to design and have developed a methodology for working with people on large public sector projects.  Our work focuses on the Education and Healthcare sectors where we use a range of research techniques to extract the right information to feed into our work. This information is then used to create a holistic interior using bespoke furniture and graphics to create a specific identity for each project ensuring we give the client the right product first time.

Scott Mason and Val Clugston, both graduates of the Glasgow School of Art, met while working at Curios Oranj where they worked on the successful Saltire Centre at Glasgow Caledonian University. It was this project that inspired them to start Nomad RDC where they could focus on the public sector with a unique process of designing through research. Now five years later Nomad are a successful practice featuring teams of talented art school and design graduates all focused on bringing a unique and tailored solution to our clients needs.

SSH: What's your favourite piece of work?Too difficult to say – we get attached to all of them.  Our most local however would be the Fraser Building at University of Glasgow. It is a four floor student services building which includes a 420-seat restaurant, a 120-seat office, a service floor, meeting rooms, a GP practice and a bookshop.  The architect for the project was Page/Park Architects and we created the full interior design including signs and artwork.  The artwork created for this project was so successful that it has now featured in the Universities literature and even their merchandise. We love working with UoG, they are a great organization and it helps that they are on the doorstep considering the major portion of our work is in London and the South East of England.

SSH: What sources of inspiration do you use?

Our inspiration comes from a wide range of sources. We use a lot of design blogs as initial inspiration i.e. www.dezeen.com.  We also spend a lot of time on TED, www.ted.com which is always fascinating.  However our main source of inspiration comes from the people we work with and finding out their ideas.

SSH: What key piece of advice do you wish you'd known?Lots of things, but mostly that there was going to be a recession in 2008!

SSH: Favourite place in the Southside?

Strathbungo generally - particularly Moray place. We also love the lovely Queens Park and of course a slap up lunch at ‘Moyra Janes’

SSH: Name another Southside Creative whose work you admire?Greek Thomson.  We have been led to believe that our unit is actually part of a tenement built by one of his apprentices – but if you are looking for a living person then we are big fans of Frozen River who used to be Lapland www.frozenriver.co.uk - fabulous print/art work.

SSH: If money was no option?

We would love to see some of the over ground rail lines adapted and re-imagined as a parkway similar to New York’s Highline. We investigated this in the studio, however it seems these rail lines are used freight services.  We would love to see the boating pond in Queens Park transformed in some way also, it is hardly ever used – bring back rowboats!

SSH: Tell us one interesting fact about yourself?

Our name 'Nomad' – it actually refers to our desire to travel wherever people want to work with us.

We were appointed to design the interior and identity of a doctors surgery in Kinning Park that we are very excited to see finished. We worked closely with the doctors and patients to design a holistic interior that uses the history of the area as inspiration. Part of the commission was a fence surrounding the site which had to provide public art and we are really exited about this.   We also have a couple of really big projects in London but we can’t say much about that yet