Editorial : Creative Friendships

For their recent editorial project, the HNC class were given a brief to explore creative friendships from a selection of three - Ella Fizgerald and Marilyn Monroe, Nick Cave and Kyle Minogue, and David Bowie and George Undrewood. The brief for this required the students to focus not only on the connections between the subjects, but also the connectiosn between type and image inside the space - for this project set at two facing A3 pages. Here are three great examples focussing on the relationship between jazz great Ella Fitzgerald and movie star Marilyn Monroe -

1. Eric Molina
2. Paloma Aguilar
3. Daryl Hutton
4. Katie Slesser

Miles Ahead

Here's an interesting project by NC Graphics student Pavils Vorobjuvos, for his digital project, combining web design, storytelling and art direction.  The brief was to select a title from the Bloomsbury 33 & 1/3 book series about seminal or famous albums, and to design a one page website telling the story of the title.

Pavils chose 'Bitches Brew', the ground-breaking jazz-rock fusion by Miles Davis, released in March 1970.

Pavils' process involved researching the artist, era, music and context for the title, and then thumbnail sketching out the narrative order of the content.  The visuals were then developed as a wireframe and visual mockup using Illustrator and Photoshop.  Pavils also used InVision to assemble an assets board and set up a prototype scrolling page.

The concept cleverly captures the expansive experimental feel of the music and celebrates the awesome typography associated with the album's famous cover art, by painter Mati Klarwein.

The typography on the cover is set in Novel Gothic, a font designed by ATF in the 1920's, for which no faithful digitisation currently exists. Pavils did some tweaking on a freely available substitute and the final results look pretty authentic.

Four Commendations

YCN have announced the commendations for their annual student awards, with our HND Graphics course picking up no less than four of them. This is the most commendations we've had in a single year (the course chalked up three commendations in both 2011 and 2015). This year Iain Waugh, Kit Lawson and Kryz Wajand produced winning entries for Dogs Trust, Art Fund and British Gymnastics.

YCN had a late announcement for the Action on Hearing Loss brief, with Natasha Ryan achieving a commendation for her submission.  Our sister course HND Interactive Design also secured a commendation for this brief for Sophie McKinlay, meaning that five students for the HN Visual Communication area will be travelling to London in September to the YCN Awards.

Samples from the Commendations -

Iain Waugh - Dogs Trust




Natasha Ryan - Dogs Trust








Krys Wajand - British Gymnastics






Kit Lawson - Art Fund



More : Full list of 2018 Commendations

12 X 80s

The last project hand-in before the Easter break for the HNC Graphics class was '12 X 80s" - where they had to select an album recorded between 1980 and 1989, and tell its story in a single page website. Artists selected included Grace Jones, the Human League, David Bowie, U2, AC/DC, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Queen, Whitney Houston, ABBA, Kraftwerk, Michael Jackson, Hall & Oates and John Lennon.

You can check out some of the projects on our pinterest board, and here are three sample landing pages we really loved -

 
Bowie / Scary Monsters, Super Creeps (1980) - Paulina Wasik




Jesus & Mary Chain / Psychocandy (1985) - Aga Pomaranska




Queen / Hot Space (1981) - Lena Sakura

Commercial Types

Our HNC graphics class have just finished their first major project of the year, 'Commercial Types'. The brief was to create an identity, promotional material, and exhibit samples for an exhibition aimed at introducing five important typographers - Matthew Carter, Bruno Maag, Tobias Frere-Jones, Carol Twombly and Erik Spiekermann - to a broader, non-design audience. The class were paired in creative teams for this project,a nd had the opportunity to discuss the work with our group of 'Design Buddies' at last week's Mentor Evening in the college.

Here are some samples from two of the final results. You can see samples from all of the projects on our Pinterest boards.


Renee Simonini and Julia Martins - 'Un-familiar Faces'








Hazel Pike and Lena Sakura - 'Typogravity'

In / Out

We love topical projects. This one by HNC student Liam Phillp, for his Graded Unit, deals with the EU Referendum. The brief - In/Out - was to present an alternative to the recent Government publication outlining why we should vote Remain on June 23rd.

Liam's concept is 'the breakup', and blends an ironic play on personal relationships with crisp editorial design and a fresh typographic approach.  It's surprisingly informative, and far more memorable than any of the official information that's currently out there.

Spreading The Word

Our NC class have just finished their first editorial project 'Interview'.  For this work, they interviewed HND students whilst they were out on placement at some of Edinburgh's best agencies. The class gathered the interview source along with some great photos of the HND class, and then set about designing some nice Q&A-style spreads.  We've posted a batch of samples on Pinterest, and have included three striking pieces here -


Aga Pomaranska interviewed Aiste Piechaviciute at Whitespace.


Ken Sjoberg interviewed Alex De Sousa at APS


Julia Martins interviewed Olga Kominek at Lewis