Ross Renwick

Ross Renwick was a graphic artist, writer and co-founder of Billy Blue Creative, Billy Blue magazine and later, the Billy Blue School of Creative Arts. His graphic work was published internationally and locally. 

Renwick was forever generating ideas for quirky business plans and entrepreneurial ventures. He dabbled in advertising, journalism and publishing and even owned a copper fireplace business for a short time. But perhaps his greatest idea surfaced in 1977 when he and Aaron Kaplan created Billy Blue Creative. Never particularly ambitious, Renwick saw Billy Blue magazine as an avenue to promote colloquial Australian stories.

In more than 100 editions, Billy Blue was a launching pad for many aspiring writers. Renwick also used the publication to sell T-shirts with provocative slogans that he had designed. Many protested against pollution and one was said to sarcastically endorse renaming the Tasman Sea the “Neville Wran memorial urinal”.

He was a gifted designer with a beautiful creative flair. In his book The Best of Billy Blue, Richard Deutch described Renwick as having “a flat-out genius for graphic design”.

Renwick and Billy Blue won hundreds of national and international design awards and the company became one of the most highly regarded design firms in Sydney.

Disappointed with the standard of designers graduating from art schools, in 1989 he launched a one-year diploma design course at Billy Blue’s headquarters in North Sydney.

Billy Blue College of Design still operates today, with campuses in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. With a legacy dating back to the 1800s, Billy Blue College of Design at Torrens University Australia is the nation’s most prominent design school.