The Grillust Studio

We're often asked: "what's the Graphic Design & Illustration studio at The University of Cumbria like?"

Well, it's like this...

First Years, First Project

After the Keswick field trip we asked the students to produce a digital magazine that attempted to capture something of their experiences on the day and the essence of the location.

The idea here is to point out from the start that design and illustration are not impersonal, neutral activities. Having passion and something to say are central to the production of memorable, communicative work.

Here's some of what they produced:

First Years - Keswick Field Trip

We thought we would welcome our new students by taking them on a one day field trip to Keswick in the heart of the Lake District. It's a stunning location and a good place to use as a starting point for the first project (more of that later). It was a fun and memorable day as we happened to time our visit perfectly with Storm Ali arriving in the north-west of England!

Here's some footage we took on the day looking out over Derwent Water as Ali whipped it into a frenzy!



Here's the effect of a 90 mph gale on art & design students and tutors.


Unfortunately we hadn't thought to bring a surf board!


A little earlier in the day we had visited the Neolithic stone circle at Castlerigg which was constructed about 5,000 years ago.


A tad breezy...

Plucky illustration students take on the elements.

As the heavens opened a trip to Keswick Museum seemed in order. It's full of strange and wonderful things. Here's Photography tutor Alice playing the lithophone - that's a kind of stone xylophone.

You don't see that every day (apart from in Keswick).

The Illustrators had to visit the Derwent Pencil museum to see the world's biggest pencil (yes, that IS it)!

The museum laid on lots of free samples and a range of products for us to road test.

A great day out and an ideal location for the first project of the year.

A Very Special Visitor to our studio

Why did Pudsey visit the graphic design/illustration studio?

We can't tell you, ut watch this space...