Merry Christmas Everyone!

It's been an 'interesting' run up to Christmas here in Carlisle with some unforgettable weather of biblical proportions. Happily, as our campus is built high on a hill overlooking the River Eden, we never flood.

As life here returns to normal, we thought we'd share our wonderful campus librarian's creative (and resourceful) approach to the traditional tree and at the same time, wish everyone involved with the Grillust empire a very Happy Christmas and a Peaceful New Year.

You will be happy to know that only books relating to Christmas were used in its making (e.g. A Christmas Carol, The Nightmare Before Christmas, It's a Wonderful Life [screenplay], Delia Smith's Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Mr Blobby's Big Book of Festive Fun etc, etc.)

First Years, Fifth Project - How Stuff Works

You can't produce a piece of design (or illustration) for something you don't understand. 

Design and Illustration are both complex subjects, but at their heart lies one constant question that has to be answered:

What are we trying to communicate?

To achieve the level of understanding necessary to have something to say, we need to undertake very thorough research.

Usually, if the research has been fruitful, the actual structure of the design falls quite easily into place. There will probably be an obvious sequence that needs to be followed.

This is what this project was about - take a subject the students don't know anything about, set them to thoroughly research it and then ask them to design a digital publication that explains how the thing works in seven, double-page steps.

It couldn't be easier.

Here's what thorough research and good design development looks like (courtesy of Emma and Tabitha who had to explain how ancient civilizations knew that the earth was a sphere):

Here's the final digital publication followed by a selection of other student's work:

First Years, Fourth Project - Drawing with Understanding

Here's the project that immediately followed animation, two weeks devoted to drawing.

We believe that all our students should be confident image makers. That could be illustrators producing convincing, complex artwork or graphic designers producing a quick, plausable sketch for a sheet of packaging visuals.

Underpinning any ability to draw has to be a thorough understanding of what the artist/designer is actually seeing.

Perspective, in particular, helps explain what we see in that wonderfully complicated three dimensional world that surrounds us...

Here's a quick overview of some of the work produced by both Illustration and Graphic Design Students (including Olivia Foxton, Tabitha Walby, Rebecca Graham, Hazel Mason and Sian Whitfield...)

First Years, Third Project - Animation

Here's a small selection of work produced by our plucky first year students during a two week, intensive introduction to the wonderful world of creative animation.

The first week was all about getting ideas down on paper (storyboarding) with the final, 30 second animations being produced during week two.

Tabitha and Alex produced a very 'dark' piece of vegetable torture (an aubergine is a vegetable isn't it)?


The storyboard


Production shots


The Final Piece


Emma and Jenny looked at a non-cooperative artists' figure...





Ali and Ludia...




A further selection of storyboards...

...and more final animations.