November with Craig Oldham AKA Office of Craig

Craig Oldham AKA Office of Craig is a is a designer, educator, writer, publisher, campaigner, website-up-putter, and Yorkshireman.

Craig is many things but he’s definitely not a PDF factory.Descending from generations of miners Craig was a strike baby, born as hard-working men fought for their jobs and brought up in a house full of stickers and posters and signs created by the mining community. His dad wore a denim jacket covered in badges and patches, he was also one of hundreds arrested at Orgreave.“This thing happened, everyone knows it happened, everyone knows it was wrong.”Craig lived in a community with engrained distrust in the police and grew up coping with the stigma around working class mining communities. Whilst working in London he was the butt of the office jokes for asking for a can of dandelion and burdock with his fish and chips and he was often the only northerner in the office.Working in agencies across the country, Craig became fed up and took the leap to freelance. He had no clients, no money, had split up with his girlfriend and was moving house.“It was one of the most riveting things I ever did.”With a desire to diversify his practice and make an educational and societal impact, Office of Craig was born. Craig wanted to make an impact with work that had personal meaning to him.In Loving Memory of Work was exactly that. When Barnsley Civic was marking the 35^th anniversary of the strikes, Craig wanted to celebrate the creativity he’d seen in the houses he grew up in. The posters and stickers and leaflets created by the miners. Taking just a year from initial idea to print, In Loving Memory of Work tells the story of the strike from those who were making and creating at the time. Proceeds from the book and the prints – made with coal – go to the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign to help families uncover truth behind what happened at Orgreave and get justice for their communities.During the first coronavirus lockdown in the spring, Craig was using design to highlight injustice again. Incensed by the Government categorising anybody earning less than £25,000 ‘low-skilled’ as part of a tough new Tory immigration policy and then the very same politicians standing on their doorsteps to clap key workers – many of who were classed as low skilled just weeks before.Craig’s Key Workers print includes dozens of professions that were both vilified and performatively celebrated by the Tories, with proceeds going to Eat Well MCR—a community and volunteer-led collective preparing and delivering food to NHS staff, those in food poverty, women seeking refuge, and homeless people—each print makes 15 meals.Words by Molly McGreevy.The video from Craig’s talk is available to view here.