welovedesignetc
The design courses blog for BA (Hons)
and HND Vis Comm at Edinburgh College

Events Awards Success

28 September 2013

The Design Team are celebrating after picking up a Commendation on Thursday evening at the Scottish Event Awards.

Back in July we received a nomination in the 'Best Educational Event' category for our sell-out One Night Stand graduate show at the Traverse. Our event team - comprising the design tutors, HND students Ryan Allan and Byron Abbot, plus mentor Iain Lauder - accompanied Neil Manning, Programme Leader for Art & Design in Creative Industries, to the Crowne Plaza in Glasgow for the ceremony. Check out the full results at the SEA website.

The HND Graphic Design course has two further opportunities to win important educational awards later this year. We've been named finalists in the Innovation Award category (for our Mentoring Programme) at the SQA Star Awards, and have also been shortlisted for a Learning & Teaching Award (for our course induction strategy) at the College Development Network. Both awards ceremonies will be held in November.

More: Scottish Events Awards winners (in the DRUM)


mentor evening

27 September 2013


Final Year student Emma Fitchie and new mentor, Kate George. Pic by Derek Anderson

On Wednesday we hosted the first mentoring session of the year, where our new final year design students got the chance to meet their mentors and discuss their new project, a live brief involving a re-brand and web design for a Scottish charity organisation.

We also showed a selection of the 90-second videos our students put together for their motivation projects. Some of these are now available to view on our vimeo space.

One of the mentors who couldn't make the event was Kirsten Murray (a senior designer at Family), who was on holiday in America. But she showed her dedication to the programme by taking some time out to say hello to everyone via Skype from San Fransisco.

An extra guest in attendance was Simon Earp, recently appointed Vice Principal of Corporate Development at the College, who came along to see the mentoring programme in action.




90 seconds of motivation

23 September 2013

This week our final year students will present their first project work of the new semester. This will be a 90-second video on motivation and creativity. The theme was suggested by Gregor Matheson, digital designer at Lewis, who has just signed up to be part of our award-winning mentoring programme.

Along with the other mentors, he'll get a chance to see all the work on Wednesday evening at the first mentor meeting of the year. As a taster, check out Andy Palfreyman's excellent effort.




London 2013

20 September 2013

Our 2013 study trip to London has just about been finalised for this year, and will take place during first week in November. The plan is to visit a couple of design agencies (details soon), check out some exhibitions (including an annual pilgrimage to Tate Modern), and generally soak up London's unique design inspiration vibes. Our HNC group did a short project to design a poster for the trip, and the winning design came from Alasdair Muir, with his Pentagram-inspired monochrome travel symbols, closely followed by Saulius Stebulis' surreal take on three days of sightseeing.






Thankyou Heedi

17 September 2013



We love this little movie made by HND Yr1 design students Daniel Plunkett and Craigh James to say thanks on behalf of the class for a great talk last week by Veronica Ferguson, one of our stalwart mentors and Creative Director at Heedi. We also love GF Smith Colorplan.


Join the Gorilla Movement

10 September 2013

An original brand design from one of our HND students has launched in high streets across the UK.

Back in November 2012, Goji (MOBO award-winning hip-hop artist Tinchy Stryder's headphones brand) collaborated with YCN to set a student competition brief. Goji were in search of a unique look for the launch of their new and exclusive accessories range. Graphic design student Emil Bloom took on the brief and received a YCN Commendation for his efforts. Goji loved the idea so much that they decided to put it into production, and after a summer of top secret development, Goji Collective's 'Gorilla Movement' has finally launched.




You can check out the range of accessories at the Goji Collective website, or you can pop into the nearest Dixons, Currys or PC World, where the point-of-sale visuals may just tempt you to join the Gorilla Movement and buy new set of headphones.

Dixons praised Emil's "brilliant understanding of the Goji brand. Goji Gorilla is more than an iconic image, it is a story that translates across all channels of our business; in-store, online and in press." The Gorilla campaign has generated more than 86,000 views on the viral campaign, with sales already exceeding expectation.

More:
'Students' headphone design snapped up' - article in the Edinburgh Evening News
Goji Gorilla YouTube Viral - Funny Dancing Gorilla
Goji Collective on Twitter - @gojicollective
Emil Bloom on Behance - www.behance.net/emilbloom


All the A's at YCN

4 September 2013


l/r Emil Blums, Luke Milne, Elan Tang, William Ford, Carmen Bermudez, Alex Gunn (Tutor).
Photo-Richard Bisset.


Tutors Alex Gunn and Richie Bisset accompanied five of our students down to London earlier this week to the annual YCN Student Awards. This year YCN moved from their regular awards venue at Shoreditch Town Hall to the equally impressive Marriot in Grosvenor Square. As usual the team at YCN put on an excellent show including a live band, a great atmosphere for networking, and the rather apt theme for the night - 'Gold'.

Two of our HND Interactive Design students Carmen and Elan won commendations for their work on the Experian brief, whilst HND Graphic Design students Emils, Luke and William all picked up commendations for their Goji projects.

Experian have asked Carmen and Elan to sign a worldwide contract to use their ideas, whilst Emils 'Goji Gorilla' idea had been under top secret development over the summer, and is rolling out at a major high street electronics retailer later this month. You can check Goji Gorilla out at Goji Collective.