Brummie is famously known for his animation work with He also worked with Wings, Mike Oldfield and Duran Duran. He's an Oscar-nominated filmmaker and he's won three BAFTAs.
In 2010 the exhibited the early work that changed the course of his life - made in Birmingham.
Back in 1972 he was the first animation student at Gosta Green Polytechnic. He learnt his trade at what is now the at Birmingham City University.
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Speaking of those days Ian can't help recollecting the .
"A beautiful object -it's still in one of BIAD's Vis Comm studios - but most students haven't the foggiest idea what it is," he says when we meet earlier this week in the newly opened .
"In fact these cameras were a cornerstone of traditional animation from the days when film-making and engineering were locked together."
It was using this camera that Ian developed his first animation film, , based on the Pink Floyd song, 'One of these days' from their Meddle Album. "That was in the days when you filmed it had to be right first time, there was no re-working a sequence and once you had shot it you got the job off to a developer, in the post, having to wait on tenterhooks for its safe return before you could even see your work," he exclaims.
He sketches out how he met up with Pink Floyd following this. "I had the film can under my arm and was knocking on doors around London. I was seeing people because of French Windows and , the animator who'd made Animal Farm, gave me my first job.
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"I'd been there three weeks and he said you must send this to the Old Grey Whistle Test. When it was screened Bob Harris, the presenter, said, 'What an incredible piece of film'. It was seen by Rick Wright, Pink Floyd's classically trained keyboard player, who'd composed quite a lot of the music for Meddle.
"I ended up animating the Dark Side of the Moon at 22 years old! In the same year I married and bought my first house. ?"I was a working class lad from Birmingham with no privilege in my background. My life has been made by my education. And at that time it was free."
It's clear that Ian feels a great debt to his teachers.
"At Marsh Hill Boys Grammar Technical School Mr Chapman, an amazing art teacher, set me flying with art. I then spent a transforming year in 1969 in Bristol doing a Pre-Diploma at West of England College. A tutor called Denis Curry became my mentor. He was a 'genius' obsessed with structure, and that teaching of structure became a foundation in everything I did, for the rest of my life, be it image-making or filmmaking.
"At Birmingham College of Art (now the School of Art and part of BIAD) I then took a three year Diploma in Painting and Sculpture based at Margaret Street.
"There was an experimental multi-platform workshop there with access to photographic equipment and multiple materials but there was no one else using it at the time. I had unlimited material resources and access to four practicing artists. One of them was Roger Westwood. He had a huge influence on me and seemed to be amused by everything I did.
"I set about building worlds using wood, cloth, clay. Roger used to say, 'Ian if you can't find something for a scene you just make it, don't you?'.
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"I had access to the course, the facilities, the materials, the amazing tutoring and all for free. This was the foundation of my life.
"My take on tuition fees is that it's just to do with economics. Education is not just about creating students who have narrow employable skills. It's about people with much wider perspectives - who are excited by art, have open, questioning and creative minds, grounded in core skills so they can back up their ideas with action.
"I always come back to drawing, my core skill. I always start with my ideas by sketching them out. Time with tutors has been key to me, but it requires money to pay teachers to be around to open minds. I took so much in during those days and it transformed me.
"I was not riding on talent. I worked hard and with lots of encouragement from my teachers it helped me to turn my life around into a director.
"I worked with Pink Floyd and other bands during the '70's, the era of the concept album. The people running the record labels only just caught up with this in the '80s and '90s. You have to let the creative people run to get the new concepts developed.
"My worry is moneymen are tending to stifle rather than encourage creativity. Now we are planning education alongside money when it has to be about a bigger philosophy.
"I love Birmingham being a manufacturing city. Margaret Street was built by industrialists to help to create designers who could put their ideas into industry and manufacturing.
"I have a strong loyalty to Birmingham and to BIAD. I feel strongly about education; about the connection between creativity and commerce and how making this connection more strongly can be good for Birmingham.
"If the country's going to get out of trouble we need to manufacture and to be good at manufacturing we need great designers. You only have to look in Millennium Point to see the work of James Watt during the Industrial Revolution, how design and manufacturing from the Midlands reached out to the world and brought untold wealth into Britain.
"The is a great idea. I think what it's done so far is to inform people what's already here. That we are proud and that we create things here. Now we need a bold vision that people will travel to see. We shouldn't be second city, or second guessing, or lacking in courage. It's too important for that."
* Beverley Nielsen is Director Employer Engagement,