06-07-12 - New Designers

Once again I took the opportunity to visit this years New Designers show at The Business Design Centre in Islington London. The standard of work is unraveling and gets stronger every year. Like last year I overwhelmed myself with taking brochures of work ready to insight and fill my current year 2 students minds with come September.

The graphic design and illustration this year was by far one of the highlights and this is not due to it being my subject matter. Some of the students concepts and execution was staggering, and with one particular stand which stood out to me being Havering College. Now only in its 2nd year of running, the work was of an extremely high standard and held a real sophisticated and playful approach to its branding.

New designers is a great way to source current design trends, competition and to physically see the work that I would like my students to aspire to. This is one show I would deeply recommend, even if you are not going onto Higher education, it makes a great day out.

04-07-12 - Mural looks for a home

As you may have seen on previous posts, the 1st year students were working towards a Mural inspired by their surrounding habitats. Since the completion of the project we have not been successful in finding a permanent location for the mural to situate itself. With this in mind, course leader Lee contacted the local Yellow Advertiser newspaper to come and write and article about the work that had been happening. Hopefully this will inspire those who have the power to offer us a home to do so.

Yellow Advertiser - 

"A MURAL created by students from South Essex College of flora, fauna and wildlife from the region needs rehoming. 

The work is currently stored at the East Street Campus, but lecturer Lee Hey wants it to take pride of place somewhere where people would be able to appreciate it. Lee explained the students had created the work as part of their Level 3 art and design course. He said: “I would absolutely love the opportunity to possibly exhibit the mural at any suitable location. “We have had a couple of offers which have fallen through and now have a mural with no home. “I would like it to stay in Southend, but the students used the postcodes from Southend to Barking to source the images so anywhere in that area would just be great.” The painting was created in order to celebrate the diversity of nature that is found in the area. It has been painted with indoor paint but it can be prepared to be displayed in an outdoors area. It carries more than 175 images and stretches more than 25 metres long."

13-06-12 - Departed Soles Exhibition

Today was the opening private view night for the Departed Soles exhibitions. the show was an excellent success with a full house of friends, families and other outside guests all giving some great feedback to the students and to myself as one of the course lecturers. Everyone had worked so hard on setting up this exhibition and you could see the relief and expression of success on all of the students faces who attended last night. the show consisted of a range of pieces, products and art forms each to their own complimenting the space. Below is some photos of some of my "Graphic Design students" outcomes. More photos are on their way.

 

  

 

06-06-12 - Fashion, Fashion, Fashion

Last night was the private view night for the BND level 3 Fashion promotion end of year show. the exhibition consisted of an array of exciting outcomes that promoted brands within the discipline of fashion. There was a real diverse range of outcomes varying from booklets, posters, calenders, projections and even cupcakes. The exhibition was a one night pop up shop that coincided with the BA Hons Fashion Design end of year Catwalk show. 

The BA Fashion Design Catwalk was a chance to see all that had been happening in the fashion studio this year with a collection of over a 100 pieces being showcased from a range of truly talented young designers. I didn't get the time to see the show last year so I was really excited about seeing what the catwalk brought to the college. Some of the garments were designed and produced to an exceptional high standard and I could see so many being sold if entered into the high street market. This was the 1st of the end of year shows for 2012 with more to commence this week included my very own Level 3 Extended Diploma in Art and Design Departed soles exhibition.

29-05-12 - Mural Design

In continuing with the mural project this week, 1st years have now explored a range of images and produced stencils to create there mural designs. each student was assigned a colour group that they had to stay within and had to ensure that their design overlapped onto the next students work. This morning my self and Lee took the team down into the atrium area and joined all of the mock panel together to get a sense of what needed to be changed and improved. Next week the 1st years will start their final pieces painting their stencils onto 1.5M plywood panels ready to be installed in a couple of weeks.

23-05-12 - Google Education

Over the past term (10 weeks) as part of the 1st years Unit 12: Computers in Art project, I have been working on building up their graphic design skill set on a branding and marketing project. The brief was simple yet vague, to design a collection of promotional and marketing material for Google education.

Each student was asked initially to respond to the work of Jesse Hora and to produce an illustration that would then go onto be manipulated and transformed into a whole branding package. Looking back at the project some parts took way longer than expected and I personally wish that I had run more workshops for those who needed support and help in concepts and the ability to take one design into an array of outcomes. The feedback I have received however form other lecturers and students has been amazing and some of the work is of an outstanding standard. the project draws to a close in two weeks and I am sure to have many distinction based projects. Below are some of my favourite outcomes that have been completed.

20-05-12 - Departed soles Exhibition

This is by far my favourite time as a design lecturer where final major projects are underway, the weather is good and we as a design team start to plan and prepare our end of year show. Last year I made sure that I made an impact on the college shows with it being my first student show. This year despite the odds against us with space and time, is looking to be another real success, and I am beyond excited about the ideas that are being executed.

This year the show has been named and branded "Departed Soles" a twist on a conversation me, captain Nicky and course leader Lee were having about students walking over us, the building and leaving their mark as they depart. I don't at this moment in time want to give much more away, all I would like to say is on the 13.06.12 the open night of the show featuring an eclectic mix of Fine Art, Graphic Design and Design Crafts based work will be on at South Essex college. (Full details are on the posters for the show featured below)

18-05-12 - Abstraction of the open mind

over the recent weeks I have been experimenting and playing around with the composition of a triangle. This all started out from initially responding to Damien Hirsts "Spot Paintings" that now seem to have wormed their way into my head. I was questioning the form and aesthetic of a triangle and its relationship to surrounding space. whilst producing these compositions I played on colour the idea of responding to one particular element "The Green Triangle". these random experiments ask a series of questions relating to both form, function, observation and white space. I am definitely going to take these into a more mixed media purpose but for now here are some initial test pieces.

 

 

15-05-12 - Life of a mundane object

This was a quick fix task in which we asked our year 1 learners to identify an everyday mundane object and record it in several different ways. They had to produce a timeless piece that incorporated several different choices of media as well as respond to scenarios when drawing their object. In the dark, reflection, upside down and folded were just some of the scenarios we asked our learners to take into account. below are all the responses to this activity that have been placed together. see if you can make out the not so mundane object.

08-05-12 - Mural Design

The 1st years are currently working on their final project of their 1st year which comprises of a part live project consisting of a mural design. The project has chopped and changed rapidly over the last couple of weeks due to commitments over a site where the mural can be located, however we have now had confirmation that Barking Station will be the host for this rich eclectic mural consisting of bold colour and reflected the areas local Flora Forna. The design of the mural is stencil based and is an initial reaction to the work of Hannah Werning. Today we set the 1st years a group based task where they used existing imagery to create an array of silhouetted forms and to start getting their heads around form, colour and layout. Please keep an eye out for more posts on this topic.