all starry eyed…

The return of our second years last week also brought the start of a new trend…the EDGD star awards. Throughout the year we are going to present special design awards for exceptionally awesome, or exceptionally silly, displays of graphic skill. The first of these awards was to announce the Designer Of The Year for the previous 12 months, as voted for by the students. Congratulations to Adam Dempsey who consistently produced the best design throughout the first year of the course…or paid the most bribes!! Hopefully this first award will stimulate a competitive atmosphere in the second year base room, and we shall see some amazing work…mainly because we have 19 more awards to give out!!

So, second years - work hard, think hard…and do great stuff!!

And remember…we're always watching…

big treats…

It's induction week again already!! Where did that sneak up from?? Of course, induction week can only mean a couple of things: new first year students, Sue confusing everyone's names, and Big It Up! The new guys took to this task no problem, which is a good indication for us having some great designers again this year. All we need to do now is to get ready for the second years returning next week, and then it's time for some hard work… as we like to say “back to the sketch…”

read all about it…

One of our recent second years, Lewis Garforth made it into the news a couple of weeks ago. Lewis managed to land himself a design job at Pendle Leisure Trust, working on their promotional graphics and other projects. He is obviously very happy about this, as are we because we like to brag when our students go on to do great things. Although Lewis is apparently mis-quoted in the article, we are choosing to keep faith in that old saying “Any publicity is good publicity”. We are very proud of Lewis for displaying the confidence to go out and aim for a design job at such a young age, and hit his target… we wish him all the best for the future.

You can read the Lancashire Telegraph article about Lewis landing his job here

a close shave…

So our second years really got into the spirit of things on Friday: Michael Duddle made us proud and didn't wimp out, Mark brought in his clippers and a razor, we all wore something red, and Brandon even made a big Deadmau5 head to attract some more attention to our cause! It was such a nice day, that we set up our barber shop outside… We had loads of fun, and raised nearly £50 in aid of Comic Relief…well done guys - you all deserve a slap on the head!!

Click on the picture to get a closer look

A full photo album will hopefully surface on Facebook soon, so we can tag all your lovely faces!

hair today, gone tomorrow…

We are a nice bunch here at NDGD… so in the spirit of Comic Relief, tomorrow (18 March) we are trying to do our bit. We are all meeting in the Art & Design foyer from 10:30 onwards for a money raising event: Michael Duddle, one of our second years, is letting us shave his head for cold, hard, Red Nose Day cash! If you are around college, come down and help support us - and bring some sponsorship pennies!

You may even be able to get a hair cut yourself…

bookworms…

Our second years are currently creating their children's illustrated books. They have toiled away, writing some fantastic, original stories and are now beginning the really fun part of the project - coming up with the illustrations. As is always true with any project - the finest solutions come from lots of experimentation - testing out ideas and developing a unique style. The video above takes a look at the work of Axel Scheffler, most famous for illustrating the Gruffalo character. A great video that showcases how even the professionals start at the drawing board and have to work hard at developing their illustrations.

Hope this inspires some of you second years… remember to not be scared of making mistakes, and have fun experimenting.

Also for you guys to have a look at, there is a video of illustrator Emily Gravett talking through taking her drawings through into Photoshop… this video will make you want to start saving for a graphics tablet!! View Emily Gravett's workshop here

You get what you give…

print & sniff…

We can't believe this our first post of 2011… I know it may seem it, but it isn't because we are lazy, it's because we are the super-busiest people ever at the moment. However, we think this post is definitely worth the wait…

Posted with our first years in mind, but this is still definitely worth a peek for you second years - Little White Lies designers The Church Of London have just unleashed this little treasure on youtube… a two minute video that squeezes all the work that went into the production for their most recent issue (The Black Swan Issue). Great to catch a glimpse of the design process in industry - meetings, planning, drawing, computers, cups of tea, stressing out at technology, and sniffing a new print of your work!! Also, for those of you that like to know these kinds of things, the front cover for this issue was guest-designed by David Carson… the guy that produced RayGun magazine. Enough reading, grab a look at the video here

You can take a further look at Little White Lies, including the full-screen online view, here

You can check out design studio The Church Of London here