A Brief History of Shillington

A BRIEF HISTORY

9:20

Wednesday, November 26

OF SHILLINGTON

Back in the mid 90s, our founder Andrew Shillington was running a busy design studio in Sydney, Australia, but kept being faced with a dilemma. Andy’s dilemma? He wanted to hire graduates fresh out of university, but none of these graduates were trained to work in a studio—even after three or four years of a degree. Andy’s solution? An intensive graphic design course that actually trains students to become professional graphic designers, who understand the ins and outs of working in a design studio. Like that—Shillington was born.

Taking Over Down Under

1997 — Shillington founded, Sydney campus opens.

Shillington’s inaugural college was opened in 1997 in Andy’s hometown Sydney. Andy chose Shillington’s home to be in the Sydney CBD where it still remains, with the same phone number, today. From the very beginning, Shillington’s mission was always the same—to produce industry ready graduates with amazing, polished portfolios in just three months full-time or nine months part-time. And we’ve been doing that now for 25 years non-stop.

2002 — Melbourne campus opens.

2006 — Brisbane campus opens.

Following on from Sydney’s success, Shillington began to set its sights on two more Australian cities: Melbourne to the South-West and Brisbane to the North. By the middle of the new millennium Shillington had opened campuses in both cities— in 2002 and 2006 respectively. Why these two cities? Both were an obvious choice for a graphic design college, with Melbourne being globally recognised as Australia’s cultural capital and Brisbane being known for being a centre of technology and innovation.

2007 — Shillington celebrates its 10th anniversary.

London Calling

2008 — London campus opens.

A year after its tenth year in the business, Shillington expanded into the Northern Hemisphere and opened its first international campus in London. A London location made perfect sense for Shillington’s campus outside of Australia—after all, it is a city known for its creative culture, whether that be fashion, architecture or, of course, graphic design.

2009 — Manchester campus opens.

Fast forward 12 months after London opened its doors, Shillington continued its British takeover, opening a campus in the Northern Powerhouse, Manchester. Located on the edge of the lively Northern Quarter, Shillington Manchester was amongst the best that the vibrant city had to offer—rubbing shoulders with some of the best design studios up North.

Crossing the Pond

2011 — New York campus opens.

From here, there was only one logical next step for Shillington: The Big Apple, the City That Never Sleeps. Call it what you want—New York City is undeniably a major international hub of design. So in 2011, Shillington opened its first US campus, nestled amongst the skyscrapers of Manhattan.

September 2014 — London opens a second studio.

All campuses were going from triumph to triumph and, six years after it opened, Shillington London moved to a new location so that the campus could grow into a second studio—meaning more students and more designers.

July 2015 — First Shillington Post published.

2015 saw the publication of the first ever Shillington Post, which was aptly themed ‘Firsts’. You can read one of the articles ‘Foot in the Door’ written by Shillington’s Global Head of Course Content John Palowski elsewhere in this issue—though the full issue is also available online.

No Signs of Stopping

2017 — Shillington celebrates 20 years.

September 2017 — New York expands to 3 studios.

Two decades and countless graduates in, 2017 saw the New York campus add a third studio to its repertoire—overtaking London to become Shillington’s largest campus. The twentieth anniversary also saw the publication of the Shillington Post #5: The Anniversary Issue which celebrated 20 years of Shillington success.

September 2019 — Shillington launches Sunday part-time courses.

Part of Shillington’s mission straight from the start was to help anyone to achieve their dreams of becoming a graphic designer, so in 2019, a parttime course that runs every Sunday was launched in London. This move allowed students who worked evenings or lived too far out to get to campus during the week to become part of the Shillington family. We’re now on our third intake of students who start their week off a day early, to study design.

Going Truly Global

March 2020 — Pandemic. All courses moved online.

With the world in the grips of the Covid-19 pandemic, for the first time in its history, Shillington moved all its courses online. We were thrilled, given lock-downs, quarantines and isolation, to see graduates across the globe produce some of the best portfolios our team had ever seen.

September 2020 — Online Course launched.

Spurred on by the determination of our graduates, the Shillington term worked relentlessly over the summer of 2020 to launch Shillington’s first ever dedicated online course. And the solution was simple—recreate exactly what Shillington had been doing for the past 23 years online.

Now in its fourth iteration, the Shillington online course continues to grow and connect budding designers from all over the world. So far, we’ve had graduates from China, Mexico, India, the USA, Italy, Japan, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, Indonesia, Estonia, Australia, Switzerland, Ecuador, Canada, Israel, Poland, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand, Haiti, France, Kuwait, Sweden, Taiwan, the Philippines and more.

A Quarter of a Century

2022 — Shillington celebrates 25 years.

A quarter of a century is a long time, especially in an industry that moves as fast as graphic design. But Shillington’s longevity boils down to the fact that we are still doing what we were doing 25 years ago when the Sydney campus first opened: teaching students relevant industry skills and equipping them with an incredible design portfolio so they’re able to go out and thrive in their creative careers.

Over those 25 years, we’ve seen over 9000 students come through our doors (both physical and virtual) with a myriad of backgrounds, experiences and circumstances—who all unite in the one thing that has brought all this together, and the one thing that we all love: graphic design.

The Future — Still teaching, still designing, still transforming lives.

A lot has changed since Shillington was founded back in Sydney those 25 years ago, and undoubtedly a lot will change in the next 25 years but, as Andy himself has said, Shillington will be here “doing exactly what we’re doing right now…just years better at it”.