Each month (beginning August 2025) on this page, we add a profile or interview with one of the Guild's Companions, professional partners, friends or associates. We hope you enjoy finding out a bit more about these remarkable people and their diverse interests and experience.
INTERVIEWS
August 2025 - Companion Lefteris Heretakis
Interviewees to come include Ashley Gallant, Richard Channing, Charlie Tebbutt, Terry Johnson, Dominika Wielgopolan and Kateri Ewing.
Lefteris Heretakis
Ruskin’s Timeless Call: A Conversation with Guild Companion Lefteris Heretakis on Art, Design, and Education
In an era captivated by fleeting trends and hollow profits, the voice of John Ruskin, the 19th-century artist, writer, and social critic, resonates with striking clarity. His words, steeped in a reverence for truth, beauty, and justice, offer a compass for navigating our fragmented world. I recently spoke with Companion Lefteris Heretakis, a designer, educator, and podcaster based in Valencia, Spain, whose 30 year career in visual communication design and higher education has been profoundly shaped by Ruskin’s teachings. Drawing on The Elements of Drawing and The Seven Lamps of Architecture, Lefteris shared a vision for revitalising art and design education, urging us to heed Ruskin’s call: “There is no wealth but life.” Our conversation revealed how Ruskin’s principles can guide us towards a future rooted in ethical imagination and quiet, meaningful action.
From Violin to Vision: A Practitioner’s Path
Lefteris’s journey began not with a paintbrush but a violin. Trained rigorously from childhood, he practised six to seven hours daily, only to realise at 16 that this path was not his own. This led him to art and design, starting with a foundation course at the Kent Institute of Art and Design in 1994, where students were treated as serious creatives with access to inspiring facilities. He went on to study illustration at Kingston University and earned a master’s in Visual Communication at the Royal College of Art. By 2009, he was teaching, driven to give back through dialogue with future designers.
It was during this period that Ruskin’s The Elements of Drawing and The Seven Lamps of Architecture became his guiding lights. “I was inspired by Ruskin’s words,” he told me, quoting, “What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.”. “These works hold the keys to saving art and design education,” he said with conviction. Ruskin’s emphasis on practice over theory, on the act of creation as an expression of moral purpose, struck a deep chord. “His ideas, written over a century ago, feel as though they were crafted for today’s digital disconnection and commercialised education,” Lefteris noted, echoing Ruskin’s lament: “We have much studied and much perfected, of late, the great civilised invention of the division of labour; only we give it a false name. It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided; but the men.”
The Digital Divide and Ruskin’s Craftsmanship
The advent of digital technology in the late 1980s and early 1990s promised to enhance artistic practice but often severed ties with tradition. “When digital arrived, we didn’t know how to integrate it thoughtfully,” Lefteris explained. “There was no need to abandon tradition; we could have used digital tools to continue it beautifully.” Instead, an obsession with appearances—polished surfaces over substance—took hold, a trend Ruskin would have deplored. As he wrote in The Seven Lamps of Architecture, “The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.” This focus on becoming, on the sacred essence of craftsmanship, is what Lefteris believes we must reclaim.
In academia, the integration of art and design into universities has further skewed priorities. The push for theoretical dissertations, while valuable, has diminished practice. “We have 25% theory, which is splendid and important, but 75% practice—that’s what’s been forgotten,” Lefteris said. “Those who focus solely on research, without practising, are leading the field astray.” Ruskin’s insistence on doing, on aligning hand, heart, and eye, offers a corrective. His Elements of Drawing emphasises “attentive seeing,” urging creators to observe with care and intention, a practice that counters the superficiality of our digital age.
The Commercialisation of Education: A Ruskinian Critique
The commercialisation of education, Lefteris argued, is a modern betrayal of Ruskin’s vision. In the UK, universities outsource services like security and catering, inflating costs while reducing teaching staff. “This is a plague,” he said bluntly. “Students are treated as clients, expecting ‘value for money,’ which distorts the honest exchange education should be.” He recounted a disheartening experience at a UK university, where a vice-chancellor’s failed project disrupted teaching with construction noise, leaving students feeling neglected. “If students feel nobody cares, they’re not engaged,” he said, echoing Ruskin’s warning in Unto This Last: “The first of all English games is making money… But it is a bad game, and a worse education.”
In contrast, countries with free education, such as some in Europe and Asia, often provide better resources, though public institutions may suffer from outdated curricula. The best teachers often gravitate to private schools for better pay and flexibility, meaning “the best teachers rarely meet the best students.” Ruskin’s focus on practice and ethical purpose could bridge this gap, prioritising students over profit.
Awakening the Moral Imagination
For Lefteris, the heart of design education lies in what Ruskin called “hand-heart-eye coordination”—aligning actions, emotions, and ideas. “Ruskin wrote that art, craft, and design, rightly taught, awaken the moral imagination, guiding the hand and heart towards truth, beauty, and justice,” he said. This is not just about creating objects but designing lives. He shared the story of a Leeds student, trained in graphic design, who applied its principles to build a successful pub business. “Teaching design isn’t just about making things,” Lefteris said. “It’s a way of thinking, helping students design their lives within moral and ethical boundaries.”
When a student experiences this awakening, “there’s an energy in the room,” he noted. Ruskin’s teachings urge us to ask, “Why are we making this? For whom? What does it uphold?” These questions transform the classroom into a space for ethical imagination, not mere visual production. As Ruskin wrote, “True craftsmanship is an act of love.” Designers must care deeply, infusing their work with purpose, not chasing wealth or self-gratification.
The Guild of St. George: A Call to Quiet Action
As a companion of the Guild of St. George, Lefteris is part of a global community across 12 countries, united by Ruskin’s vision of living as though the world were sacred, restoring harmony between humanity, nature, and the divine through quiet, meaningful action. “In a world driven by individualism and profit, these ideas can feel out of place,” he admitted. “You can’t go around saying this stuff—people might sideline you, especially when you mention the divine in a startup-obsessed culture.” Yet Ruskin’s call to align values with actions is universal, transcending time and culture.
The Guild offers a space to connect with others who share this commitment. For those hesitant to join because they’re not “Ruskin scholars,” Lefteris was clear: “Ruskin wasn’t a scholar; he was a practitioner.” The invitation is to live differently—thoughtfully, simply, with care for the world. “We need more guilds,” he said, “groups of people working to make life better through quiet action.”
Ruskin’s Warning and Today’s Challenges
Ruskin’s words capture the crisis of our time: “We’ve mistaken wealth for virtue and progress for wisdom. We build great engines in monster cities, yet forget that our soul is starving.” In the West, individualism has eclipsed collective responsibility. “It’s all me, me, me,” Lefteris said. “We need to realise we’re one humanity.” In Asia, he’s seen cultures that retain values of respect and community lost in the West. In the UK, we’re sliding towards what Ruskin called “illth”—the opposite of true wealth, driven by greed and selfishness. “Everyone’s a mini-tyrant in their workplace or family,” he observed.
The solution lies not in blaming politicians—“they’re powerless,” Lefteris said—but in our collective actions. We must act reflexively, applying Ruskin’s lessons, reflecting, and refining. “I find clarity in the pre-dawn hours, when nature is still, and there’s a beautiful silence,” he shared. The Guild could offer spaces for such reflection, perhaps through “pre-dawn forest bathing” at Ruskin Land, to help us reconnect with our values. We should also learn from global practices. “Europe often ignores what’s happening in the East and West,” he noted. In Asia, small, ethical projects receive support, unlike in the West, where funds are misdirected. The Guild could foster public-private partnerships to prioritise students over profit.
A Vision for Renewal
Lefteris’s work—spanning graphic design, education, and his podcast Design Education Talks—is at the service of the Guild. “Ruskin’s The Elements of Drawing and The Seven Lamps of Architecture are an ecosystem for renewal,” he said, “shifting our focus from output to process.” They urge us to design curricula rooted in “attentive seeing” and ethical inquiry. “The design classroom should be a space for ethical imagination, not just visual production,” he added.
Through The New Art School and the Design Education Forum, Lefteris is nurturing future designers and connecting global specialists to revive Ruskin’s principles. His vision is collaboration—through workshops, events, or shared projects—to amplify Ruskin’s ideas. “Let’s learn from East and West to rebuild a world where beauty stems from ethics,” he urged. As Ruskin said, “There is no wealth but life.” The Guild invites us to live with purpose, aligning hand, heart, and eye.
A Call to Companions and Beyond
Ruskin’s frustration was that too few embraced his ideas. Today, we must heed his call to action. The Guild of St. George invites us to live thoughtfully, to design lives and communities rooted in truth, beauty, and justice. For those considering joining, it’s not about scholarship but practice. Let’s collaborate to create ripples of change, transforming education, design, and society for the better. As Ruskin wrote, “The work of our hands and hearts, however small, can restore the broken harmony between man, nature, and God.”
Lefteris Heretakis is a designer, educator, and podcaster with international experience, having worked with multinational corporations, cultural organisations, and start-ups. As an educator, he has taught visual communication challenges in various countries, including the UK, Spain, China, Turkey, Vietnam, and Latvia, emphasising both traditional and digital skills to prepare students for today's rapidly evolving design landscape. Lefteris founded The New Art School to nurture future designers through a curriculum focusing on observation and hand-eye coordination. He also established the Design Education Forum to connect global specialists in art and design education. Additionally, as a podcaster, he hosts and produces "Design Education Talks" and mentors designers worldwide, promoting accessible, expert mentorship. A companion of the Guild of St. George, he is passionate about reviving Ruskin’s principles in art and design education. Connect with him through the Guild or his podcast on design education.
You can find more on his work in links below: