27th Letter Winner!

Our heartiest Grillust™ congratulations go out to 3rd year Graphic Design student David Guthrie (21) who was announced as the winner of the 27th Letter international design competition 

The competition was judged by Phil Cleaver, designer of The Book Collector and Professor in the Creative Industries at Middlesex University, James Fergusson, Editor of The Book Collector, Fergus Fleming, writer and co-publisher at Queen Anne Press, and Lilian Lindblom-Smith, Head of Graphic Design at Middlesex University.

In the end, David captured the judges imagination, winning £250 and a beautiful trophy book designed by Phil Cleaver. The winning entry?That’s right, the winning entry is lol. Injecting a little more humour into the alphabet as we know it!

David Guthrie, competition winner (lol)

A surprised Roddy Hunter, Director of the Institute of the Arts with 3rd year Graphic Designer David Guthrie.

In 1947, while helping out at the typographical magazine Alphabet & Image, James Bond creator, Ian Fleming conceived the idea of a competition for the best interpretation of a twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet. Entries had to have a distinct purpose and would be judged by him alone. This year's competition followed Fleming’s rules: the letter must conform to the alphabet as known in English-writing countries and must represent a particular sound or combination of sounds. All that is necessary is that the entrant must be over sixteen years of age and have an idea as to how written English could be improved.

Tapping into the current zeitgeist of text lingo infiltrating mainstream written language,  David decided to create a character representing the acronym LOL...

...and he won! lol. 

David is now setting about designing, amongst others ROFL, WEG, SMH, WTH, WTF & TTFN characters all to be sold as limited edition posters! 

Grillust Graduate to Judge D&AD Awards in 2017

D&AD (Design and Art Direction) is the leading professional organisation for those working in design and advertising. The D&AD Professional Awards are recognised globally as the ultimate creative accolade, entered and attended by the best from around the world. And one of our own graduates, Rick Banks, who is now a leading figure in the graphic design world, has been asked to be a judge of the Awards in 2017. We remember Rick metaphorically 'in short trousers' and now look where he's got to! 

Third year graphics, first project

After a long hot summer watching daytime TV, going to festivals, playing the latest video games, raiding the family fridge and other traditional student pursuits; the return to University can be a shock to the system. In this project, students produced directed research based on a single word and then designed and produced a monograph using that research directly...

Everything starts on layout paper of course. Kyle Bridson (21)

..before layouts are taken into the digital realm. Kyle Bridson (21)

Two experimental spreads by Emma Davidson (21)

Will Fuller (21) gets all 3D visually

Metamophosis. Becca Lettice (21)

Experimental type spreads, Becca Lettice (21)

Gravity, James Musson (21)

Experimental typography, James Musson (21)

Experimental typographic spreads by Elinor Prescott (21)

Andrew Byrom talks

Due to Prof. Andrew Byrom's status as a Grillustasi, he was obliged to deliver a presentation outlining his philosophy and thoughts about graphic design, typography and the meaning of life.

Look and learn!

Experimental typography

1st year graphic designers are currently experimenting with type and letterforms. Here are some of the results...

Typographic textures from Erin Middlemass (21)

Tangram experiments and letterforms; Oliver Coupland (21)

More tangram typefaces from...

Dan Bewley (21),

and Kareena Smith-Gavin

2nd YEAR, 1st PROJECT

Over the summer, our new second year students were asked to document their passions, other than design or illustration. On returning to University students were tasked with developing visually arresting editorial spreads using that research.  Here are just a few examples...

Adam Peel (21)

Reece Crowder (21)

Sophie Driffield (21)

FEELING GOOD :-)

You might remember that one of last year's super-star Grillust™ graduates, Rachy McKenzie (33), was a worthy winner in the 2012 YCN design briefs, with some juicy typography she created for a Feel Good drinks campaign.

The fruity folk at Feel Good liked her approach that much, they've been working with Rachy over the past year to develop the campaign which is now live across the UK...

Rachy McKenzie. 100% Natural Born Grillust™

Type tricks

The other morning we presented our 3rd year students a range of display 'faces, a number of complicated rules and a very tight deadline (measured in hours, not days); and then we encouraged them to indulge in some speculative play.
They are a talented bunch so it was difficult to decide what to show you, but here are just some of the highlights...

Ieva Bureikaite (21)

Ashleigh Crighton (21)

Claire Evison (21)

Megan Hyslop (21)

Ollie Malone (21)

Monographs

Our eager and talented 3rd year graphic designers and illustrators have just finished their first project after the summer vacation. Asked to respond to a given word and produce a printed monograph, they approached the project in their usual inventive and exploratory manner. Here are just some of the highlights from a really varied, creative and carefully produced set of projects...

It's going to be an great year :-)

Yvette Earl (21)

Megan Steen (21)

Stephanie Stilwell (21)

Ben Walton (21)