Herald Scottish Digital Business Awards

We're only a few weeks into the new session but we are already celebrating an award nomination. HND Graphic Design students Ryan Allan, Mark Phillips and Jordan Pollock, who graduated today at the Usher Hall in the College's annual ceremony, have had an entry shortlisted at the prestigious Herald Scottish Digital Business Awards, in the Student category.

Back in July, towards the end of their studies, the trio submitted 'Lockdown', a YCN project to encourage donations to the Royal Albert Hall.  The solution was an experimental guerilla campaign and event promotion, featuring some striking visual styling, an original events-driven idea, and some awesome UX design.



Lockdown promo visual

All three graduates have already successfully entered industry - Mark is currently working at Blonde Digital,  Jordan is a junior designer at Whitespace, and Ryan is a graphic designer at Mywebcare.  You can check out their Lockdown project sampler here.

About the Awards
Launched in 2009, the awards recognise the success of businesses large and small across Scotland producing commercial and creative work in digital technologies, design and media channels.

The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on Thursday, October 23, 2014 at the Grand Central Hotel, Glasgow when Scotland’s most innovative businesses will come together in celebration of their achievements, so good luck to the guys.

Mentoring & Motivation

Two excellent examples from the HND Motivation project, which students presented last night in the Studio at our first mentoring event of the 2014-2015 session.

Dystopian Design Buddies

As if we aren't busy enough getting our HND class ready for the first Mentoring Evening of the session (Wed 24th), we're about to launch a new employer engagement strategy for the HNC group.

This new idea is the 'Design Buddies' programme, where students get to buddy-up with some of our recent graduates, who will then form a mentor-student relationship, popping into college to do crits and providing feedback and art direction on various projects. The idea is to get our HNC class acclimatised to working with industry people so that when they move into the final year and join the mentoring programme, the transition is less daunting and smoother. Initially we've asked ten of our former grads, all working in agencies across Edinburgh and Glasgow, to sign up to be a Design Buddy. First up for them to get their teeth into will be a book cover design project.

This project is set every year at HNC, and covers a lot of the techniques, ideas and process required for the Typography and Design in Context units at SCQF level 7.  Last year the project brief was to design covers for four classic Raymond Chandler novels.  This time around, we've decided to go with the theme of 'Dystopia'.  The brief asks the students to design three covers from list of eight titles suggested by the client, Penguin.  The solution needs to be purely typographic, and the titles must be part of a collectable series. The list includes works by the likes of George Orwell, Philip K. Dick, Marge Piercy and William Gibson.

The Design Buddies can expect a sizeable PDF in their inbox soon containing sketchbook ideas and early versions of design work for Dystopia.

Two Truths One Lie

A couple of excellent examples today from the recent NC project 'Two Truths, One Lie' - based around exploring true and false personal statements and how these messages can be used to manipulate the emotional response of the target audience.


Adam Rauch - 'I Pay For'






Matthew White - 'I Have Never Watched Groundhog Day'