UCAS Create Your Future - Manchester Central Convention Centre

We're just back from the two-day UCAS Art & Design event held at the Convention Centre, Manchester.

It was a very busy two days for 'Team Cumbria'. We met lots of interesting people (hello), answered lots of questions (about our wonderful courses) and gave out lots of prospectuses and leaflets to interested students (and their tutors). 


Here's the team 'limbering' up before the doors are opened and the crowds come flooding in...

 ...and here they are in action!

The Year is...

Our Second Year Graphic Design students have been busy developing their understanding of editorial design, typography, and information structuring. For their second project this semester, each student was given a year of the 20th century to research with the aim of producing an information broadsheet which presented a snapshot of the most newsworthy events and cultural happenings of the time. Like all good design, the most successful projects employed in-depth research and an understanding and mastery of the chosen content to create eye-catching and intelligent work which reflected 'the spirit of the times'. The A2 broadsheets were double-sided and had to exploit at least three folds in their format. Here are a few of the most successful examples, unfolded.

Sam explored the year that taste forgot, 1970.

Gaby had the momentous year of the D-Day landings, 1944...

while Josh charted the rise of fascism and preparations for war of 1939,

and Becky explored 1948's events for post-war change and independence.

We take pencil sharpening seriously Too seriously what could possibly go wrong?

Y3 Illustrator wins top award at comic art fest

 

Hazel Mason (21), aka Hi-Viz Hazel, has beaten off stiff competition to win the top award at this year’s Lakes International Comic Art Festival.
Hazel, originally from Stoke-on-Trent and a third year BA (Hons) Illustration student at the University of Cumbria, entered the competition to re-imagine the 1940s comic book character ‘The Spirit’.
“I envisioned Will Eisner’s character actually in the Lake District”, she said. “The feedback I’ve had is that the judges really liked it; it was very different from what they’d seen before. I think everyone went into it making an entire comic book, because it's a comic festival, but I thought I’d put my own spin on it.”
She concluded, “Winning made me feel great and now I feel even more confident to enter prestigious awards and competitions in the future.”
No stranger to success, Hi-Viz Hazel’s work has also been recognised in this year’s Cheltenham Illustration Awards. From over 1000 entrants, she was selected as one of sixty successful illustrators to be listed in their 2017 annual.
See more of Hazel's work here.

‘The Spirit’ was a 16-page comic section which ran for 12 years from 1940-1952. It introduced action, mystery and adventure through the crime stopping escapades of its hero ‘The Spirit’ – a dashing, masked vigilante who dispensed justice in ‘Central City’ and beyond.
2017 marks the 100^th anniversary of the birth of ‘The Spirit’s’ creator, Will Eisner, and to celebrate the centenary, the Lakes International Comic Art Festival commissioned the competition in homage to comic book legend.

hazelpmason.co.uk