Art and design have been constant in my life ever since my mid-teens, when I took a two-year intensive course in industrial design at the Art & Design Centre, Valletta. I was awarded the Borsa di Studio Amadeo Grutter for three weeks in Italy, an experience that I have continued to utilise to this day.
Following my course I became a Darkroom Operator with P&S International Ltd, where I trained in darkroom techniques and learned the process of burning and developing plates, making contact prints, photo mechanical transfers and films.
My next job was as a Graphic Designer with JP Advertising Ltd, where I trained in paste-up, computer page layout and more darkroom techniques. In this capacity I designed page layouts for such publications as The Sunday Times Magazine, The Circle, Medical Journal, The Photographic Journal, The Caterer and Informatics.
In 1990 I joined Crown Advertising Ltd as Senior Graphic Designer, where I worked mainly on newspaper adverts and was responsible from brief to finish, including visuals and artwork. Crown Advertising was the first publisher of Air Malta’s in-flight magazine Malta This Month, so when the company split up in 1991 I stayed on to work as Art Director for this well-known magazine with Advantage Advertising Ltd.
In this capacity I was responsible for the design and layout of Malta This Month, liaising with photographers to ensure high-quality photographic content, and supervision and quality assessment both when the publication is returned as four-colour films and when it is at the printers’. I was also responsible for the general management of the studio.
In my various capacities I have picked up an above-average fluency in a number of computer programmes, including (but not limited to) Adobe Indesign, Photoshop and Freehand.
In October 2006, I was chosen out of 150 applicants to attend an intensive 8-month course in the EQUAL Entrepreneurship Management Training Course organised by the EU and Malta Enterprise respectively.
After leaving work, I decided to start working a a professional freelance photographer and Graphic Designer. You can see some of my work on http://www.vancellfoto.com
Interests
Favorite Music
Rush, Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, Coldplay, Kate Bush, Mike oldfield
English
