Regular readers will know that earlier in the year, 2nd year graphic design student Sam Mallard's beer can designs (below) were selected for production by our friends, Eden River Brew Co. a continuing partnership that's brought several can designs to the craft beer market.
Recently, we were delighted to learn that Sam's designs were placed second in the standard label category by The Labologists Society - The International Society of Label Collectors.
2nd place!!! ... to use footballers parlance, "we was robbed!"
Since Eden River Brew Co. introduced the beers in June 2018, these special craft brews have sold out! A testament to the quality of the beers and the shelf appeal of Sam's labels.
Illustration supremo, Dwayne Bell (33), has a second job - stunt double for Liam Gallagher. He was out gigging with Liam last night and inadvertently came in today with Liam's tamborine.
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.
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.
The team behind a rapidly growing independent brewery have injected their personalities into the business by literally putting themselves on their products.
Eden River Brew Co, in Penrith – formerly known as Eden Brewery – renamed and rebranded in June. The brewery has given its new look a personal twist by featuring pictures of its team members on the cans for its core range of modern, hoppy beers.
It is also inviting customers to put their face on a can next year by posting pictures of themselves drinking one of its brews on social media.
The cans feature the faces of director Jason Hill, head brewer Linda Stanton, communications and content marketer Giles Brown and designer Jemma Ainsworth, and are available to order at www.edenriverbrewco.uk
Jason said: “Our whole ethos at Eden is to graft hard to make truly exciting and original beers, but have a bit of fun at the same time. We put a lot of ourselves into making the brewery a success and creating beers we can be proud of. I think Jemma’s designs are a clever and fun way of reflecting that, giving the brand a bit of personality and creating a connection between us and our customers.
“Obviously the people who buy and enjoy our beer are vital in supporting us, giving us feedback and encouraging us to move forwards and expand. That’s why we’re inviting people who love Eden to post a picture of themselves drinking a beer on our social media pages with the hashtag #sipspression. Early next year we’ll pick some of our favourite pictures and feature their faces on 2019’s cans.”
Jemma, a second year graphic design student at University of Cumbria came up with the innovative designs as part of the annual Eden Student Design Project, in which it challenge students to develop the artwork for its beers.
The brewery usually chooses one set of designs for use on a special range of limited edition beers. However, the quality of the work was so high this year it chose to use a number of designs, including Jemma’s which will feature on its core range of well-hopped, modern 300ml cans.
Jemma said: “I knew that I needed to come up with bold designs to stand out on the shelf and be something original that no-one had ever seen before.
“I went into shops and looked on the shelf and I looked online. But I also didn’t want to look too much into it, because I wanted to create something that was truly original.
“I came up with the idea of the faces because I wanted something that would capture people’s attention as they were walking down the aisle; using people’s faces and eye contact draws people in a lot.
“I also wanted to do something that people could interact with and I had the idea that people could get involved on social media. I thought that would be quite interesting.
“They were really welcoming and friendly people to work with and I learned a lot. I never thought that I would work on a beer can design, but I’ve learned that I like working with packaging. The fact that it is formatted on something 3D, you have to imagine how someone picks it up and interacts with it. It’s more of an experience, which I thought was a really interesting way to look at graphic design.”
Jim Millington, programme leader for graphic design at University of Cumbria, said: “I’m incredibly proud of Jemma, she’s done a fantastic job. She’s obviously enjoyed the experience. Certainly we've enjoyed working on the project with the students and also the folk at Eden River Brew Co. Here’s to working together again next year with a new batch of students and to the amazing and creative designs they undoubtedly will come up with!”
Regular readers of the Blog will know that it's rapidly approaching that time of year when we head to London (a large city somewhere to the south of Penrith) to exhibit our graduating student's work to industry professionals. Have a look here to see last year's foray to 'the smoke'.
We will be exhibiting our highly talented Graphic Design and Illustration graduates at at New Designers Part 2, held at the rather swanky Business Design Centre in central London (above). The show opens on Wednesday 4 July and it runs through to Saturday 7 July. Opening times as follows: Wed 3.00 – 9.00 (VIP & Press Preview) Thursday 10.00 – 9.00 Friday 10.00 – 5.00 Saturday 10.00 – 5.00 Venue: Business Design Centre 52 Upper Street London N1 0QH You can find more details here. We're on stand VC37 and look forward to meeting friends old and new. Here's an extra special, behind-the-scenes preview of what we will be showing...
Regular readers will know that our illustration and graphic design students have been working with the Eden River Brew Co. brewery, and one of the county’s most successful family
businesses, to create the artwork for a new range of beers.
Eden River Brew Co., in Penrith, is running its Eden Student Design Project
for a second time, in partnership with the Westmorland Family, which
owns Tebay Services, on the M6, Gloucester Services on the M5 and the
Rheged Centre. The new range of beers were launched on Friday 4th
May at the Rheged Centre.
In January, the brewery’s managing director Jason Hill briefed design
students at the University’s Brampton Road campus on the project - packaging for a limited edition range of fruit beers. Buyers and
designers from Westmorland helped to shape the brief and give
insight into how to make products stand out in a crowded market.
Students worked on a design brief for 440ml cans, with
designs from second year graphic design student Sam Mallard, 26, from
Carlisle, chosen for use with the final products. The range will be on
sale at Tebay Services, The Rheged Centre near Penrith and Gloucester
Services on the M5.
Eden were so taken with another design concept by Jemma
Ainsworth (19) that they’re using her designs for another range of
beers.
Brewery managing director Jason Hill said: “The brewery has been
doing extremely well and growing nicely over the last few years. This is
obviously great news for us, but it’s also really important that as we
grow we work with people in the area to make sure they feel some of the
benefit as well.
“This could be all our great local suppliers or, as in this case,
youngsters looking to get some really valuable experience before
starting their careers.
“It was really tough deciding which of the students’ designs to go
with, because there were so many imaginative and striking designs on
offer. But in the end we felt that Sam and Jemma had the right
combination of flair and fun to do justice to the beers we’ve created.”
Grillust™Group Captain, Jim Millington, said: “The Eden Brewery project is fantastic for our students
because it puts them in front of a live client, responding to a brief
and delivering a finished design concept. The students were given free
rein to be as creative as they liked but they also had commercial
requirements to satisfy.”
Commenting on his designs being used for the limited edition fruit
beers, student Sam Mallard said: “I’m excited and thrilled to have my
designs out there on the shelf for people to buy. To be given the chance
to work for a client has been fantastic and I am humbled that
my designs were selected when standards were so high.”
Designers Lucien Xavier and Helena Davies, from Westmorland, briefed students and helped to choose the final designs.
“We wanted the design to be creative and unique
in a market that is known for its individuality and flair. The students
did a great job with the brief, working hard to produce fantastic and
professional designs that stand out on the shelves.”
This year's exhibition has been titled 'A Cabinet of Curiosities' and has been styled accordingly. Here's a video 'fly-through' of the exhibition space taking shape (sans work) - if you look carefully you can see that a convincing bar has already been installed for the opening night.
Who'd have thought that students were such amazing 'tat' magnets! You are all welcome to join us at the opening event next Friday evening, 6 June. Full exhibition details are on the invitation below, designed by Year 3 Illustration student Hazel Mason.
Since the early days of the comic genre, female protagonists have been few and far between.
Approximately one in four female comic characters are female, and even those characters often
have passive or minor roles. The Hero(ine)s exhibition (which we recently hosted in our Vallum Gallery) aims to challenge, question and subvert our
perceptions of the comic hero.
The exhibition features original artworks where comic artists have been
challenged to reinvent their chosen male superhero in female form and contribute a narrative to
explain their choice of heroine and their perceptions of how women are represented in the comic
genre. Artists include Steven Appleby, Walking Dead artist
Charlie Adlard, Finnish artist Kaisa Leka, Swiss artist Hélène Becquelin and Belgian comic artist
Brecht Vandenbroucke.
Nick Dodds, Senior Lecturer at The University of Cumbria, said, “The opportunity to host Hero(ine)s
is a fantastic coup for the university. The theme of the exhibition, exploring gender roles through the
eye of the comic artist, appears timely and pertinent given recent news stories. The 'alternate' take
on the typically male comic-hero by the artists featured in the exhibition is done with wit, humour and
a certain knowingness - asking the viewer to question cultural attitudes to gender representation,
myth and narrative.”
As part of the Hero(ine)s exhibition, there was an opportunity for students to take part in creator workshops led by international comic artists Steven Appleby and Kaisa Leka. Here are some photos of the workshops, lectures and exhibition all taken by Rachel Miller (R. Miller - Copyright: creative commons) .
An Instagram campaign #heroinesproject encourages comic enthusiasts to draw and share their own heroines. A selection of these drawings will be displayed at the Lakes International Comics Arts Festival in October. You'd best get drawing!
Hello and welcome. This blog comes to you from the GRaphic Design and ILLUSTration (GRILLUST) courses at The University of Cumbria here in beautiful Carlisle.
From time to time we'll be posting student work and other things that catch our eye, both inside and outside the studio.
We hope you like what you see and please feel free to get in touch. We would also like to point out that the views expressed here aren't necessarily the views of The University of Cumbria, although they could be...
