Massimo's 12

HND Year 2 were treated to an excellent session today from one of our mentors, Ian Kirkby from the Lewis Creative Consultancy.

Ian had set the class a short project based around Massimo Vignelli's assertion that there are probably only about a dozen really good typefaces. The task was to select a list of twelve essential typefaces and then design a set of posters promoting an exhibition of 'Massimo's 12'.

For the record the typefaces were:

Serif: Bodoni, Bell MT, Sabon, Nouvelle
Sans Serif: Helvetica, League Gothic, DIN, Metro, Futura, Gill Sans
Slab Serif: Rockwell
Script: Hancock

The overall judgement was that the top design came from Paul Dankool and his Rockwell poster. The twelve posters are available to view in our gallery pages, and are on display in the design studio, and Ian plans to exhibit them in the Lewis studio as well.

Ian also presented a recent branding project which Lewis had worked on, and took the class through the various stages of ideas development the agency had proposed to their client.

This included a detailed analysis of the client's current image, a proposed set of branding aims, and some great web samples, including some cool grid-based wireframes and visuals incorporating the new branding and some very sleek web typography.

More:
Massimo Vigelli wiki

MPA Roses Commendation

More congratulations to HND Year 1! This week Terry Smith picked up a commendation for his entry to the MPA Roses Awards 2011. Terry chose brief 8. 'Younique' set by Manchester-based Branding specialists Like A River -

"Great advertising & design connects with its audience. In six steps connect yourself with a hero. Present as a book and show us how unique your are."

Terry's solution -










This year MPA Roses had 337 entries from across the UK. Full details and results on the DRUM's Roses Student Creativity Awards page.

Well Done Abbie!

Congratulations to HND Year 1 student Abbie Macpherson, who came second in the FE Colleges section for Show Racism the Red Card, the UK’s premier anti-racist charity.

Abbie and Design Tutor Helena Good travelled to Hampden Park in Glasgow for the prizegiving on Thursday 17th March. There were over 2000 entries this year from Schools and Colleges across Scotland. As well as three posters, Abbie also submitted a video, which was shown at the event as an example of 'outstanding creativity'.

This is only the second year that Show Racism the Red Card has been open to FE Colleges, and we have prize winners in both of years - Ross Duncan won the award in 2011.

D&AD Sample Submissions

Here is a short selection of HND Year 2 submissions to D&AD 2011. A full gallery of all submissions will follow. HND Year 1 also submitted this year - they were allocated the Aviva Brief - and their submissions will also be posted shortly.

For digital-only submissions, the first round of judging is already underway, and shortlisted students will be announced shortly. The main judging takes place in April.


Gill McColl - Copywriting / D&AD









Paul Dankool - Open Advertising / Umbro

Anita Wroblewska - Packaging / The Body Shop

Kay Cochrane - Copywriting / D&AD

Emma Hart - Advertising / The Body Shop






Tada Guobazas - Open Graphic / Arjo Wiggins Paper

Show Racism the Red Card Finalist

One of our first year HND Graphic Design students, Abbie Macpherson, has been selected as a finalist in the Show Racism the Red Card Project for 2011.

The competition accepts any form of media that is creative, inspirational and based around the anti-racism theme. Abbie aubmitted a series of three striking typographic posters -








Show Racism the Red Card is the UK’s premier anti-racist charity. The annual creative competition is supported by the SQA and has categories for primary, secondary,special schools and further education colleges.

Abbie's work is one of 3 shortlisted selections from all the FE Colleges across Scotland. The prizegiving will take place this Thursday at Hampden Park in Glasgow.

More:
Show Racism the Red Card@SQA
Show Racism the Red Card Official site

Making Their Mark

HND 2 were treated to a great talk earlier this week by two leading industry figures from great agencies - Iain Lauder, Creative Director at Redpath, and Gus Chalmers, MD at Union.

As part of this event, the class were given out a new Mentoring brief - the Marketing Society's Creative Star Student Award for 2011. This brief is also going out to Edinburgh College of Art, Gray's School of Art (Aberdeen) and Duncan of Jordanstone (Dundee).

The client is Maker’s Mark and the product is their Kentucky Straight Bourbon - “America’s Favourite Redhead” .

The task is to develop the creative look and communication for a new advertising/promotional campaign aimed at driving the ongoing rate of sale of the brand.

What's great about this brief is that the first response requires a written submission - no sketches, visuals or moodboards - just the raw ideas in no more than 1500 words.

From this submission, a shortlist of candidates will be chosen by the beginning of April. Those who have been shortlisted will be invited to bring the written concepts to life by means of a visual presentation on the 27 April.

Twestival Logo Winner

Thursday 24 March is Twestival Day, and one of our HND students, Gill McColl, has won a competition on Twitter to design the logo for Edinburgh's Twestival event.

Twestival is the largest global grassroots social media fundraising initiative to date.

Over 200 international cities from Buenos Aires to Bangalore, Seattle to Seoul and Hong Kong to Honolulu have participated in Twestival.

The event uses social media to connect communities on a single day, and this year Edinburgh Twestival is raising money for St Columba’s Hospice, with 100% of tickets sales & donations going straight to the charity’s rebuild project.