Graphic design and art direction across music, entertainment and film advertising, including work with A to Z Music Services, Silva Screen Records, Turner Entertainment, Feref and Curio.
Biography
Design. Education.
Research. Film.
A professional life shaped by making: first through graphic design and visual communication, then through teaching and academic leadership, and increasingly through filmmaking.
Biography
A continuing creative trajectory
Don Parker is an educator, researcher and creative practitioner based in South Wales. His career began in graphic design and visual communication, including design work connected to film advertising. He subsequently moved into higher education, where creative practice became the basis for a sustained interest in how people learn through making.
At the University of Bristol, he has held senior educational leadership roles and contributed to the development of interdisciplinary programmes connecting innovation, design, technology and entrepreneurship. He currently leads the university’s postgraduate Digital Innovation programmes.
His research focuses on studio pedagogy, assessment dialogue, judgement and human capability in the age of AI. Alongside this academic work, he is developing an increasingly film-centred creative practice through Don Parker Studios. Together, these strands offer institutions an unusual combination of creative practice, programme-scale leadership and research capable of turning ambitious educational ideas into workable systems.
Selected career
Teaching and academic leadership at Newport School of Art, Bournemouth University and the University of Gloucestershire, with responsibility for advertising, graphic design, visual communication and postgraduate research.
Education and programme leadership at the University of Bristol, connecting design thinking, innovation, technology and entrepreneurship. Associate Professor from 2024 and Programme Director for postgraduate Digital Innovation from 2025.
Research, writing and filmmaking continue as related forms of inquiry, with film production presented through Don Parker Studios.
Formation and recognition
Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Executive Programme in Higher Education Leadership and Management, University of Oxford
PhD in Consumer Behaviour, University of South Wales
Boundary
Two connected public identities
This site presents Don Parker’s professional biography, educational work, research and writing. Films, moving image, sound and releases are produced and presented separately through Don Parker Studios ↗.