We Love Placements, etc

It's that time of year again when our HND2 students go out into the world of industry on a work placement. Placements are a crucial rite-of-passage for any fledgling designer, but given the current economic climate, gaining valuable industry experience is more important than ever to the success of our course.

We'd like assure all the agencies who've agreed to offer a placement that our designers want to think for a living, and know how to make a great cup of tea. Huge thanks (in no particular order) to -

Lewis
Story
Zero
Heehaw
Realise
Eskimo
Project
Heedi
StudioMB
White Light Media
Platinum
Fourth Craw
Morton Ward
Edinburgh City Council
Avian (Dundee)
meandalan (Newcastle)
Redpath
The Union

YCN Annual 2011

Our consignment of the YCN Student Annual 2011 arrived in the studio towards the end of last week. Produced in an edition of 15,000, the Annual is freely distributed across creative education, and to leading creative agencies internationally.

The annual showcases of all the Commended work from 2011, plus the live creative briefs for 2012. This edition features a series of five interviews with former Commended students, looking at their experience and successes in the industry. It also contains sample work from our three Commended students - Abbie Macpherson, Gill McColl and Sarah Crawford. Their complete winning submissions are on show at the YCN website.









Gill McColl/Ted Baker, p58.

Abbie Macpherson/Whyte & Mackay, p85.

Sarah Crawford/Boost, p127.

We Love Design-In-Context

The studio corridor is currently being graced by a massive series of design-in-context posters, designed and compiled into a series of collages by HND1 in their class with tutor Alex Gunn. All the usual suspects are featured - the Constructivists, Bauhaus, Swiss Style, the Futurists, Dada and so on. Check them out -

REAL Magazine / Editorial brief

Editorial Design may be an endangered species (see Magculture's Jeremy Leslie's recent comments in Design Week), but it's still one of the most glamorous sorts of briefs to work on.

Our annual editorial project was set back in November, where the HND2 students commissioned HND Photography Students to supply them with images based on a theme.

This year we went for 'REAL' and each student was given a subject area such as arts, technology, environment, travel, etc. The deliverables consisted of a cover, masthead, three double-page spreads and the archived image source. Here are some sample spreads -



Jordan Porteous - Real Politics



Terry Smith - Real Extreme Sports



Steven Brown - Real Fashion



Nootcha Promyong - Real Food



Abbie Macpherson - Real Arts




Kat Rebacz - Real Words



Nijal Munankarmi - Real Health




Tassia Woodger - Real Technology



Zia Vest - Real Economics