The Model Obaly Young Package Competition

Model Obaly has announced the 22nd year of the Young Package competition. The topic of the Young Package 2017 is: Open & Play

We invite students and young designers to use modern technologies to package a favourite product in a playful way, create a surprise, or design packaging children would like to play with.

The motto  "Play with packaging" follows on from last year’s topic – PACKAGE UNLIMITED, in which students and young designers created packaging that had several uses.

Young Package is a competition in packaging design. It is meant for young designers of up to 30 years of age. Since its foundation in 1996, the Young Package competition has achieved an international reputation and a distinctive position among competitions for young designers. Every year, several hundred participants from the whole world send their entries.

Young Package focuses on packages made of paper. The competition was founded to invite students and creative people, and challenge them to create designs of corrugated and smooth cardboard or other paper materials widely used in packaging design. 

Young Package is held annually. Its founder Model Obaly, the Czech branch of international Model company, is a leading package manufacturer and a great believer in supporting and challenging young creative talents. Since 2009, the competition has been organised by CZECHDESIGN.CZ.

Entry is free and the deadline for registration and submission is March 25 2017

For more details  or to register look here

Heath Park School Visit to The School of Art

The School of Art has today welcomed staff and fifty students from Heath Park School, visiting the University for an Experience Day. Their visit to the School of Art included an interesting talk by Divisional Leader Maggie Ayliffe and Graduate Teaching Assistant Sarah Byrne on life as a University student and the importance and value of the creative industries.

Heath Park students enjoyed workshops in Visual Communication, Fine Art, Photography, 3D design and Animation. Visitors had lunch in the new University refectory, before visiting the Harrison Learning Centre for a tour of the extensive art and design library. Everyone had an enjoyable day.

Marie Muzhuzha: Graduate Success, Q&A

We’ve caught up with BA (Hons) Visual Communication (Graphic Design) graduate Marie Muzhuzha who has been awarded The Sheaffer Prize for Outstanding Work on Live Commissions in Graphic Communications!

1. What degree did you study with us and when did you graduate?

I studied the BA (Hons) Visual Communication (Graphic Design) course and graduated September 2016 with a 2:1.

2. What did you do after graduation?

I was fortunate enough to land a job a month before my graduation! I am carrying on gaining experience within design.

3. What is your current job?

I am currently working for a software development company called Fiverivers as a digital designer. I generate anything from logos, branding, product and web design. I am undertaking a few freelance jobs alongside it for companies such as Freemans and SCC.

4. What’s the best part of your job?

The best part I would say is gaining experience in the corporate industry. Working alongside a talented team and being able to brand an entire company is very fulfilling.

5. How did studying at the University of Wolverhampton either help you to gain this job – or how have your studies benefitted you in your day-to-day role?

I have gained a lot of industry experience from the University of Wolverhampton prior applying for a job. I think it is fundamentally important and fantastic that the University of Wolverhampton supplies and equips its students with such experiences before they leave the University of Wolverhampton. The Artsfest competition brief was a huge breakthrough and impactful in my design career, it helped me realise I could achieve something if I worked hard enough.

6. What, for you, was the best part of studying at the University of Wolverhampton?

The best part was the help and feedback I received from my tutors. I could not thank them enough for the hours they put into every student to make sure we all succeed. I will miss having such support.

7. What’s next for you? Any goals or aspirations still to achieve?

I believe I haven't even scratched the surface of what I can achieve. I am full of energy and very optimistic about my career. I just want to make some sort of contribution to the design world. In order to do that, I am going to look for every opportunity available to me, take every opportunity given to me and create an opportunity for others.

Orion Publishing Visit Visual Communication Students

Visual Communications staff and students want to say a big thank you to Loulou Clark and Abi Hartshone of Orion Publishing for giving a fascinating lecture on their careers to date, the work of Orion Publishing, and also for introducing the Orion Publishing Group Art and Design Competition 2017.

This years brief offers the opportunity to design a cover for The Reader by Prof Bernhard Schlink. Received with critical acclaim and celebrating twenty years since it's first publication, The Reader was turned into an Oscar winning movie starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes.

A previous winner of the Orion Publishing Group Art and Design Competition was Visual Communication Alumni and Cumberland Pencil Company graduate award winner, Kate Ackley. For more information look here and here

Calling all artists for Wolves in Wolves project!

We’re looking for talented artists to be part of the biggest public art project to take place in the city during the summer of 2017.

The project called Wolves in Wolves will see 30 beautifully decorated large Wolf sculptures installed across the city centre. The Wolves will showcase the wealth of artistic talent in the area, whilst positively contributing to the economic, cultural and social life of the city.

An information event is taking place this Sunday (4 December 2016) at the Art Gallery, Lichfield Street from 11.30am – 12.30pm, it will be a great opportunity to learn more about the project and how you can take part.

For more information contact Jagtar Singh on 550357 or email Jagtar.singh@wolverhampton.gov.uk.

Student Success - Designs for Scouting Magazine

Regular readers of this blog will recall the third year live project run by Marc Austin and Jeff Leak to design a feature spread for Scouting magazine - details can be found here and here. 

The Winter 2016-17 issue of Scouting has now been published with the winning design by Paulina Wesolowska. Shortlised designs are also shown on the reverse of this issues carrier sheet.

Scouting is a popular and widely read magazine, with an average UK circulation of 99,917* Speaking of Paulina's double page spread, Chief Scout Bear Grylls said "young people never fail to inspire me"

Thank you again to the Scout Association and Immediate Media for offering and supporting this project and congratulations to all students involved.

* figure based on circulation figures for 1 Jan - 31 Dec 2015

Howard Read - Exhibition

Elephant - A series of drawings witnessing the regeneration of the Elephant and Castle 2012-2016

Senior lecturer Howard Read is also a PhD candidate at Manchester Metropolitan University; his research focuses on The role of drawing in the regeneration of urban spaces

His latest exhibition witnesses and records the contested regeneration process taking place at the Elephant and Castle, specifically the site of the former Heygate social housing estate. The official representations of urban transformation are visually packaged to show perfect visions of the future 

"my drawing is used as a method of critical analysis and to challenge these representations. Working in sketchbooks on site and in the studio the drawings create a timeline of the destruction and rupture taking place in the urban landscape. Critically engaging with the regeneration process and what it means" says Howard

This exhibition is at the Hotel Elephant Gallery, 23 Harper Road London SE1 6AW 

10-11 December 2016 11am–5pm

howardreadsketchbooks.wordpress.com 

National award for outstanding support for students

The University of Wolverhampton has won the Outstanding Support for Students award at the Times Higher Education Awards 2016, held in association with Santander Universities. The awards, now in their twelfth year, are widely recognised as the Oscars of the higher education sector, shining a spotlight on the outstanding achievements of institutions, teams and individuals working in UK higher education.

More information is available here

Contextual Cinema - Ghost In The Shell

Orion Publishing - Visiting Lecture

Loulou Clark, Deputy Art Director and Abi Hartshone, Senior Designer from Orion Publishing will be giving a lecture on their careers to date as well as introducing this years Orion book prize.

Their talk takes place on December 1st at 11.30am in The Venue at the Students Union.

Just Have To Share - Artists Rooms: Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein Reflections on Girl 1990. ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland. Lent by The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Collection 2015. © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein / DACS 2016.

Visit Wolverhampton Art Gallery to see ARTIST ROOMS: Roy Lichtenstein, an exhibition of works by one of the most radical and influential artists of the twentieth century and a leading figure in the Pop Art movement.

Wolverhampton Art Gallery is the first regional venue to host this newly assembled group of works by Roy Lichtenstein, shown as part of ARTIST ROOMS: a collection of over 1,600 works of contemporary art, established in 2008 by Anthony d’Offay.

The major exhibition brings together Reflections: Art (1988) and sixteen large-scale screen-prints, and has been made possible through the generosity of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation.

Purist Painting with Bottles (1975) – from Wolverhampton’s own acclaimed Pop Art Collection – will also feature in the exhibition, alongside the celebrated early painting In the Car (1963) and the painted steel relief Wall Explosion II (1965), on loan from the National Galleries of Scotland and Tate respectively.

The show is on until 26 February 2017. More details can be found here

Halesowen College Visit to The School of Art

The Visual Communication department at the University of Wolverhampton were delighted to welcome students from Halesowen College, who came to the School of Art for an Experience Day. Activities included workshops in Visual Communication, tours of the extensive art and design collections within the Harrison Learning Centre and an introduction to Wolverhampton Art Gallery followed by a visit to the Artists Rooms Roy Lichtenstein Exhibition. An enjoyable day was had by all.

Type Talks - Jonathan Barnbrook, A Barnbrook Super Delux, Ultra Karaoke Megamix

Jonathan Barnbrook is most well-known as David Bowie’s favourite graphic designer having worked on the designs of his last 4 albums. However he has had a long and distinguished career in type design being one of the original members of the ‘typographic new wave’ – a 1990s international movement that rebelled against the Modernist conventions of the 20th century in favour of the new freedom that the rise of technology and a re-found interest in the vernacular gave them. 

His typefaces Mason, Exocet quickly became part of the world visual language. Barnbrook continues to release fonts through his own company Virusfonts. He also runs the design studio Barnbrook, which works with a mixture of cultural institutions, activist groups' and charities. He is well known for his collaborations with Adbusters, Occupy London, Damien Hirst and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The talk will, as the title suggests be a summary of his career up until this point.

This talk is free and will take place on 12 December 6.00 - 7.30pm at BCU Parkside. Book your ticket here

Amandeep Sahota, Graduate Success - Honouring Indian VC Soldiers in WW1

Visual Communication graduate Amandeep Sahota has an interest in South Asian Soldiers of the British Indian Army who won the Victoria Cross during World War One. Amandeep has turned this specialist interest into an exhibition that is currently on at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Gas Hall. Supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the exhibition features images and artefacts on loan from the National Army Museum and the Imperial War Museum.

The Victoria Cross is Britains's highest award for military gallantry and in total eleven South Asian soldiers, including two Gurkhas have been awarded this medal. Amandeep's exhibition tells their stories.

For more information about this show look here

The exhibition is on until 28 January 2017

Paulina Wesolowska - design for Scouting magazine

We have just received notification of the 'winning' design by third year student Paulina Wesolowska for live project undertaken by students from Graphics and Visual Communication. Jessica Glaser initiated the live editorial design brief with Immediate Media and the Scouting Association Magazine, to create a new design approach for one of their feature sections. Jeff Leak and Marc Austin launched the project at the start of semester 1 and tutored students through the design process.

The editorial team and the author of the article refined the shortlist submissions as mentioned here and selected the winning design. All shortlisted pieces will be printed on the rev ease of the Scouting magazine Mailing list and the  winning design by Paulina will appear in the December issue of the magazine. Scout Najah, the writer this article helped to select Paulina's design.

Congratulations Paulina and a big thank you to Najah, Immediate Media and Scouting Magazine

Bournville College Visit to Wolverhampton School of Art

The School of Art were delighted to welcome students from Bournville College, who visited the University for an Experience Day. Activities included workshops in Visual Communication, Fashion and Textiles and Fine Art. Visitors had lunch in the new University refectory, before visiting the Harrison Learning Centre to be introduced to staff and facilities before looking at the extensive art and design library. An enjoyable day was had by all.

Clive Moore at The 5th International Summit of the Book

The International Summit of the Book recently took place in Limerick, Republic of Ireland. The conference, supported by the United States Library of Congress, was well attended with delegates from around the world, including speakers from the World Digital Library, the United Nations, the Library of Alexandria, and the African and European Libraries. The event was also attended by University of Wolverhampton’s PhD researcher and visiting lecturer, Clive Moore. 

Clive’s presentation titled “Haptics, immersion and the fetishisation of print” dealt with issues concerning the transition from print to digital book design and distribution. The key messages that Clive brought back from this conference include the potential opportunities and ongoing anxieties associated with the incursion of technology into education and how contemporary screen-based reading habits impact upon learning.

The International Summit of the Book started in Washington DC in 2012 and has subsequently been held in Singapore, Paris and Alexandria, Egypt. The theme of the Limerick conference was “The book, history, knowledge and technology” and discussions centred on the degree that humans now delegate the curation of information to machines and what the implications of artitifical intelligence are for the future of human cognition."

Scouting Magazine project for Third Year Visual Communication Students

Third year Visual Communication Student are excited to be working with Immediate Media and Scouting Magazine. Students designs for a double page spread to be featured in the Scouting magazine have been shortlisted and are featured here. One selected design will go to print in the forthcoming winter issue. 

"The opportunity for students to engage with a live, editorial design brief with limited constraints, and possibilities to interpret the copy and critically generate creative type and image responses perfectly aligns to our course ethos. Coupled with the experience of resolving a ‘real-world’ design problem, the prize of published design work is generating a buzz in our design studios. This has also enabled in-class discussions about the Scouts as an organisation and designing for different audiences, in addition to conceptual development and advanced production techniques" said Marc Austin Course Leader or Graphic Design

Jake Hughes

Katarzyna Jedrzejek

Libby Yarnall

Paulina Wesolowska

Sasha Wood

"The Graphic Design course at Wolverhampton School of Art has a long history of working with worthwhile causes and building relationships that enable the transfer of knowledge and professional experience between students and clients. Scouting Magazine offers the potential for such a relationship; the reputation and longevity of the Scout Association, exciting and inspirational projects and charitable work preformed by the Scouts, and the appeal of designing for such a diverse and broad-reaching publication provides students with a live project that they can immerse themselves in. In addition, the flexibility and openness of staff from both Scouting Magazine and Immediate Media has meant that we have been able to approach this project from a professional and educational context." continued Marc Austin.

Congratulations to all those who have taken part in this live brief.

Contextual Cinema - Inception

New Designers, One Year On 2016

We’re delighted to announce applications for New Designers, One Year On 2016 are now open.

One Year On is a high profile, exclusively curated feature within New Designers, showcasing designers with an entrepreneurial flair in their first year of business. Those who are chosen to exhibit are selected by a panel of industry specialists on the strength and ambition demonstrated through their work.

One Year On is a fantastic chance to get your work in front of press, buyers and industry trend setters. We welcome applications from all design fields - from jewellery and fashion, to furniture and film. In each part, our sponsors and partners demonstrate their support for emerging UK design talent and creativity by presenting a New Designers One Year On Award at the prestigious VIP Awards Evening to the year's most talented designer. These awards are industry recognised, and present a huge recognition to your work.

As a new business, One Year On gives you the awareness, confidence and direction to succeed. Benefits of the show are like no other, and being part of the event gives you the guidance and support you need. Benefits include:

· Preparation day to show you the space, and give hints and tips to exhibiting before the event

· Webinars giving you vital skills when entering the commercial world

· Access to our PR team and the opportunity to gain priceless exposure

Previous One Year On exhibitors include Paul Cummins, the ceramics designers behind ‘Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red’, the ceramic Poppy memorial at the Tower of London, David Irwin, the contemporary Product and Furniture Designer who now designs for Habitat and Deadgood and jeweller, Imogen Belfield.

Application Deadline is January 30th 2017. Please note – One Year On is an exclusive opportunity, so spaces are limited.

Please apply online here.

Dates:

New Designers Part 1: 28 June – 01 July 2017

Zones: Textiles, Fashion & Costume Design | Jewellery & Contemporary Design Crafts

New Designers Part 2: 05 July – 08 July 2017

Zones: Furniture / Product / Industrial & Spatial Design | Visual Communication

Jessica Glaser's Research request in Print Week

Copyright: Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections, University of Birmingham

Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication, Jessica Glaser has a call for support with research in Print Week Magazine. She is searching for post-war printing industry apprentices of the 1950s and 1960s who have personal memories of Monotype’s publicity manager, Beatrice Warde.

Glaser described American-born Warde, who died in 1969, as “a commentator whose work in the twentieth century created debate, framed and expanded discussion and has come to possess contemporary resonance.”

Warde was a prolific writer and editor. Her famous works include her homage to printers: ‘This is a printing office’ and the presentation and essay ‘The Crystal Goblet'.

She edited the Monotype Recorder and contributed to influential publications of the day including The Penrose Annual.

Glaser said she was keen to gain an impression of Warde and her ideas from people who had met her and heard her speak. Warde made frequent visits to printing schools and art colleges around the UK and overseas during her career.

“I hope readers of PrintWeek will be able to help me with my research into memories of printing and printing education,” she explained.

“I am researching responses to, and memories of talks given by Beatrice Warde to apprentices and students of printing. Many contemporary designers see her writings and legacy as iconic, however I am keen to find out first hand, what youngsters learning about print in the 1950s and early 60s thought about her presentations and ideas.”

 Print Week

Contextual Cinema - Blade Runner

Get Your Dream Job Workshop

The Careers Centre is running a 3 hour workshop for Faculty of Arts students called ‘Get Your Dream Job’ on the 1st Dec, 10 – 11

What’s your dream job? How can you make it happen?

It can be tricky deciding on what’s next after university. You may know that you want a job that you’ll enjoy, something you’ll be passionate about, something that you’ll want to get out of bed in the morning for…but what is that job, and importantly, can you get paid to do it?

This workshop is for you if: 

· You aren’t sure what you want to do after graduation

· You have some career ideas but want to firm them up 

· You don’t know how to turn your ideas into a reality 

We will talk you through several exercises to help you clarify your career ideas, evaluate their viability and figure out how to make them real. 

When?

1st Dec, 10 – 1, City Campus (room TBC)

Interested? 

Email lisa.law@wlv.ac.uk stating your name, student number, course and level of study plus a short description of the career ideas you have (if you don’t have any that’s fine, but it would be useful for us to know in advance to help with our planning). 

We hope to see you at our workshop

Lisa Law and Sarah Dar (Career Consultants for the Faculty of Arts)

The Creative Conscience Awards

The Creative Conscience Awards is a platform for innovative ideas that encompass world changing creativity. Creative Conscience's aim is to inspire designers to apply their talents to socially valuable projects, promoting sustainability, freedom, social health and well-being.

There are 4 different themed briefs: Mens Mental Health, Gender Brief, Bright Futures and the Open Brief

The competition is open to all students of creativity across the globe (or those that have graduated in the past 24 months), whose conscience has encouraged them to build a passion for a certain cause and presents a fantastic opportunity for them to utilise their creative talent to make a positive change in the world.

Applicants are required to submit work under one of the following seven discipline areas:

Advertising, Architecture, engineering & interior design, Fashion & textiles, Film & photography, Graphics, Illustration & animation, Product & structural design

Each entry will be judged by a panel of leading and influential creatives each of whom have unsurpassed experience for their respective fields. Entry is open to applicants working alone or in groups of up to 3 people. Creative work submitted has to have been created in the past 12 months from the start date of the competition.

Creative Conscience respects applicants’ rights and does not claim copyright for works submitted to this competition; applicants will retain full copyright in each entry.

There is a minimal entry fee of 10 GBP (approx. 12 USD).

Eligibility

Open to full or part-time creative students across the globe enrolled on a recognised undergraduate, postgraduate or higher education course, or those that have graduated in the past 24 months.

Prize

The winners of the Creative Conscience Awards will be invited to a networking Awards Ceremony in London, providing a gateway into the professional world through mentorship or internships (through the CCA network) and profile building PR activities.

Deadline April 20 2017

http://www.graphiccompetitions.com/jump.php?contest=creative-conscience-awards-2017

Olivier Kugler talk to Visual Communication Students

Visual Communication students have enjoyed meeting illustrator Olivier Kugler and were particularly fascinated to hear about his recent reportage project based on the plight of the Syrian Refugees. 
Médecins Sans Frontières invited Kugler to spend two weeks in Domiz refugee camp in Iraqi Kurdistan. With the help of a translator, Olivier spent two weeks with the refugees who told him their stories of time spent in war torn Syria and their experiences in the refugee camp. During his time there, he took countless photos that are used as reference in order to work on the completed drawings.

http://www.olivierkugler.com

Peter Kennard, Off Message Visit

Third year Visual Communication students have enjoyed visiting Peter Kennard's Off Message at the MAC. The exhibition showcases some of Kennard's most important work from 1968 to the present day. His photomontage images leave a lasting impression on the viewer, highlighting causes and concerns that are significant to many. The show runs till Sunday, 27 November

Freefont Noto from Monotype and Google

Google Noto is A typeface five years in the making, and spans more than 100 writing systems in 800 languages, encompassing hundreds of thousands of characters. 

Noto is collaborative effort between Google and Monotype and aimed at being universal method of communication for billions of people around the world accessing digital content.

Download Noto free here - pick the languages you want or download all fonts

£2000 Scholarship scheme 2017/18

The University of Wolverhampton has announced the extension of it's Scholarships and bursaries scheme for full-time undergraduate entrance in 2017/18

The Distinction Scholarship is offered to all UK based entrants to degree courses at the University of Wolverhampton who achieve ABB grades or above at A level, grades of distinction, distinction, merit or above at BTEC or an equivalent pass in the Access to HE Diploma. More detail of required passes and grades can be found here.

This scholarship scheme takes the form of a £2000 cash payment which is paid in two instalments in the first year of study only.

For more information on Distinction Scholarships see here

For detail on all University scholarship schemes and bursaries see here

Begum Yucelay - MA Show

There are nearly 6,500 languages spoken in the world. English is regarded as the global language and although widespread, it is often people’s second or third language. The fact that it is a global language makes it advantageous to learn it. Having said that, people are more able to understand and decode visual languages. This tells us that visual languages do not present us with the same issues as linguistic languages.

In order to learn more about this distinction between the visual and linguistic I am going to analyse different visual languages in detail, which I will apply to different projects. I think that effective communication can solve a lot of problems all over the world. My aim is that, in this global world we live in, people with few educational prospects should be able to get the same information as people with a high level of education.

begumyucelay@icloud.com

Tim Wilczura - MA Show

I‘m a metalhead. For most people this just means that I like to listen to heavy metal but for metalheads heavy metal is more than a musical genre – it‘s a way of life! It‘s part of our identity. It‘s being part of a bigger family, united by music and by being different. This is what I want to convey to my audience through my film-project.

I‘m creating a documentary about the heavy-metal and festival-scene in Germany in which I present the people and the atmosphere rather than just the bands and their music. I‘d like to take more of a cinéma vérité approach to the project, to immerse the viewer into the situation, instead of a classical narrative with an explanatory voice-over. Additionally I‘ll create a music-video to the song “Your God” by the German thrash-metalband “Skulled” to utilize my filming experiences from my MA studies.

t.wilczura@maills.de

Kristina Weber - MA Show

“I had a flashback of something that never existed.”

Arms that weep and feet that escape; sad eyes longing for happiness. She throws her head back, spreads her arms wide and everyone can see how much she loves.

Expressing her feelings through movement she dances her heart out.

My MA project explores the theme of an unattainable love through the medium of film and photography, thinking of codes that express a certain feeling and taking on the metaphor of a rose to symbolise that with love inevitably comes pain. While the photographic part focuses on pondered sadness, the film is about breaking out of melancholy. Visualizing the emotional layer of a song through a dance performance inspired by Pina Bausch, I want to change the end of the thorn birds into a positive message: Sometimes you need to let go of a dream which never existed to find happiness. Farewell.

weber_kristina@t-online.de

Matthew Walker - MA Show

Modern surveillance has become an integral aspect of culture. The panopticon is the earliest form of mass surveillance. It allowed for perpetual visibility, which is the feeling of being watched when you not necessarily are.

‘The Panopticon’ project is inspired by my research into surveillance culture in the UK, looking at the beginning of surveillance and how it has altered the public perception of the government. My work is split into two components – the first, a sculpture made from slip-casted porcelain to create surveillance cameras, which represents the most symbolic form of surveillance in a realistic manner. The second component is a booklet which delves deeper into different forms of surveillance, combining illustrative and graphic techniques.