Graduate Show 2023

 Announcing our end -of-year Graduate Show, which is at the Fruitmarket and runs from June 3rd till the 11th this year - more than a whole week's worth of amazing art & design to come and see across our 8 HN courses and the new BA (Hons) in Visual Communication.  We'll be releasing details of the private view and other one-off events during the exhibition week.  More info at the Fruitmarket website.

Creative Edinburgh Awards

An integral part of our new BA (Hons ) programme is that our students are organsied into discrete teams and work on a range of live projects throiughout the year. One project that came in was to design and create a set of 10 awards for the Creative Edinburgh Awards Tenth Anniversary this year.

The Awards celebrate the city's creative community, highlighting the projects, people and places that flourish across Edinburgh and continually ensuring its place on the cultural map, nationally and internationally. Check out the winners here.

Each of the awards represents a category and our students took each category as a theme and devised a set designs laser-etched into 7X7" bamboo plates. Its always great to get a real hands-on proejct and this brief combined illustration, typography and product design. Here are the results:

D&AD New Blood winner

HND student Ellie Chalmers recently won a D&AD for her take on the Walkers Crisps brief.  Ellie's concept of 'open up' cleverly captured the essence of the breif, to get younger men talking about their emotions and mental health issues.  Ellie is amongst the 181 winners this year, from many 1000's of entries, and this is the our 10th D&AD for Vis Comm since 2010, not a bad success rate.  You can check out some of Ellie's work below and the full project here - D&AD New Blood.  

Next year Ellie is progressing onto our new BA (Hons) year (in conjunction with Kingston University London), which will see 21 HN studnets from across Graphics, User Experience and Illustration work towards a brand new degree qualification focussed on Industry, Collaboration and creative excellence.

Pav is YCN Student of the Year

To cap off a recent run of awards successes, we gathered last week at the virtual YCN Students Awards to see 4 Edinburgh College students (3 from Graphics Design and 1 from User Experience Design) pick up their YCN Commendations.

Nick Defty and the team at YCN hosted an excellent awards evening, with over 100 participants and a slide show featuriong all the commended work. As well as awarding commendations by brief, YCN also award a student of the year prize for the most outstanding submission, and this year it was shared by two students, Daniel Mason (for the Guardian brief, University of Lincoln) and our very own Pavils Vorobjovs for his work on the Oliver Bonas / Fedrigoni brief. All the commendees are featured here.

Since 2008 the Graphics course has picked up around 20 Commendations, but this is a first having one of our students recognised in this way, so its a tremendous achievement. You can check out Pav's awesome winning work here.

Star Awards 2020

More congratulations are in order as graduate HND student Balazs Hirth won the coveted Star Student Award at the Marketing Society Scotland Star Awards 2020.  His classmate Rachel Nesbitt also won a commendation, and we had four shortlisted entrants.

We've now won this award in no less than 7 of the last 10 years, a real testament to the quality of the students the course produces and also their ability to think, design and present to their peers and wider industry. 

This year the awards ceremnoy was virtual but that didn't lessen the excitement and the sense of celebration that the event generates right across Scotland's creative industry. Well done to all the winners and shortlisted stars.

Full list of winners

Commendations & Shortlists!

Some great news towards the end of the 2019-2020 term to help get us all through lockdown

Firstly our students have again been recognised with commendations in the 2020 YCN Student Awards.HNC Graphic Design students Valentina Torella and Elia Ballesteros picked up commendations for their submissions to briefs by Camden Town Brewery and Fedrigoni / Oliver Bonas respectively. This brings the course's run of commendations dating back as far as 2008 to a total of 21.

The YCN Awards started in 2001. Each year YCN publishes a collection of live creative, marketing and business challenges — written by partners, and distributed across the Further & Higher Education network.   Check out this year's full list of Commendations here and you can read a bit more about the success, including some nice quote over on the main college blog.

Secondly, we are also celebrating 4 of our final year students making the shortlist for the Marketing Society Star Awards.  Huge congratulations go to Melinda Babai, Gonzalo Cervilla, Balaz Hirth and Rachel Nesbit who all worked incredibly hard during the initial weeks of lockdown to complete their pitches for this competition. Check out the full shortlist here.  This year the Star Awards is a free virtual event,  broadcasting on October 22nd.

Good News for Great Ideas

Photography by Cameron Brisbane

Graphic Design Tutor Helena Good scooped the Leadership Award at the Creative Edinburgh Awards last week, for her outstanding contribution to the Daydream Believers project, and in hugely deserved recognition of a career dedicated to design education and the Creative Industries.

The annual awards took place in the The Hub on the city’s Royal Mile, where a wealth of talent from across Edinburgh's creative community gathered to celebrate a variety of outstanding projects, initiatives, studios, individuals and ideas during the past year.

The Daydream Believers project - the Edinburgh College collaboration with industry and Secondary Schools - won the Collaboration Award for its groundbreaking programme designed to encourage creative thinking in Secondary Education and beyond, ensuring the next generation of talent can realise its ambitions.

The awards also recognised the work of two of our 2019 graduates, Edinburgh College HND Graphic Design students Joy Mooney and Natalie Loh, who were both shortlisted for the Student Award for their final project work, exhibited back in May at the Fruitmarket Gallery, and for their contributions to Daydream Believers.

Congratulations to all the winners, nominees and organisers - demonstrating yet again that the Creative Industries in Scotland is in good hands moving forward into the future.

More about Creative Edinburgh.

YCN Quartet

YCN have announced their commended students for 2018/2019, and Edinburgh College have garnered no less than six awards - including a stunning haul of 4 commendations for our Graphic Design students.

HNC Graphic Design students Anne Bender, Ben Neilson and David Symmons all won for their submissions to the Gumtree brief, whilst their classmate Sean Gordon was amongst the winners for his work on the Hostelworld brief.  Congratulations also to HNC UX Design student Agneszka Koundourakis (Energy Saving Trust), and Emma Pye (Gumtree). Well done all!

 We've had many multiple winning years at YCN, but this is the first time we have not entered any team submissions, so each individual win is extra special.  We'll be taking our winners down to London in September for the YCN Awards Ceremony at the Barbican.

Full results are on the New Now YCN website.

DMA Breakthrough Finalists

Huge congratulations to Blanca Jiminez, Natasha Ryan and Joy Mooney who have all been announced as finalists for the DMA Breakthrough Award for their work on the Direct Line brief.

The three final year students will be travelling down to London during the first week in December, along with tutor Helena Good, to pitch their idea to the DMA panel, and then attend the awards night on Dec 4th!

Another Big Star

Niamh picks up her award from Union's Creative Director Sheryl Thompson (right) and host Danni Menzies.

To round off a bumper year, the course is celebrating another win at the Marketing Society Scotland Star Awards, with HND student Niamh Curran picking up Star Creative Student accolade for her work on the STV brief, sponsored by the Union.

This project is unique on the course because the initial response is a written submission, and the shortlisted candidates then pitch their developed idea to the judging panel. Niamh held off competition from talented creative students at Robert Gordon's and DJCAD, and our students have now won this award in no less than six times in the last seven years.

An extra bonus this year was that 2017 graduate Christina Giannakou, now a designer at AlwaysBeContent, was shortlisted in the Rising Creative Star category, a great achievement so early in her career.

Now in its fourteenth year, the Star Awards brings together the largest gathering of the marketing and advertising community outside of London.  This year, some 500 practitioners, clients and creatives celebrated at the Corn Exchange in Edinburgh.  The full list of winners can be found here.

Samples from Niamh's submission -

Another Star

Final Year HND Graphic Design student Sarah Mary Macrae won the Star Creative Student category at the annual Marketing Society Scotland Awards, held last week in Glasgow at SWG3.

The Star Awards recognises the very best in Marketing across Scotland, and brings together the largest gathering of the marketing and advertising community outside of London.


l/r Host Sarah Calman, Sarah Macrae, Sheryl Thompson (Creative Director at Union).

This win is our fifth success in seven years, and Sarah can now look forward to a paid placement at the Union (winners of Star Agency of the Year).  Check out the full list of winners here.

Pencil Time

Earlier this week D&AD announced the New Blood Award winners for 2017, and we were thrilled to see that our HND students Sarah Lewis and Jen Grieve have won a pencil. The pair submitted their idea for the National Autistic Society brief, and were amongst 11 winners that category.

Their project - the Three Rs - featured a clever animation and some innovate storytelling on a very sensitive and important social issue. Sarah and Jen will now attend the New Blood Awards in London in July where the pencil levels will be announced. This is the first D&AD award the course has won since 2013, and the our 4th win since 2010.


Check out their project here - Three Rs - NAS
More on the D&AD New Blood Awards 2017

Star Creative Awards 2017

 We're celebrating good news from the Marketing Society Scotland, who have announced a shortlist of six students for the Star Creative Award 2017 - which contains no less than three of our design students - Christina Giannakou, Sarah Macrae and Catriona Munro.

The award is in the Development category, sponsored by Union Direct, and requires students from Universities and Colleges in Scotland to submit a written proposal and moodboard to a brief set by a high-profile client.  This year, the client was Brewgooder, and the brief was to encourage bars and restaurants to stock Brewgooder Beer and buy into its charitable mission to use 100% of its profits to supply clean water to the world.

The shortlisted students will all pitch their developed ideas to the judging panel at the Union Agency in Edinburgh on May 17th, and the winner will be announced at the Marketing Society Star Awards, the annual celebration of Scotland's world-class marketing community, on June 8th in Glasgow.
You can find out more about the awards, including the shortlists across all the professional categories, at the Star Awards 2017 website.

Over the course of the last few years our course has produced four winners of this event, including last year's Star Creative Student, Charlie Law, who is now a junior designer at Underscore in London. 

DMA Awards 2016

HND Graphic Design students Jennifer Grieve and Sam Haynes were in London last week, with tutor Helena Good, to attend the annual DMA Awards.

Jennifer and Sam were shortlisted in the DMA Breakthrough Award - which recognises emerging creative talent from the UK's Universities and Colleges. The pair picked up the runners' up spot and did some valuable networking, raising the profile of the course and doing Edinburgh College proud.

This is the second year in a row that we've had student work shortlisted at this national-recognised industry competition.  As well as attending the awards event, Sam and Jennifer presented their design solution at the Proximity Agency for the client (The Economist).

More about the Breakthrough award here, and a full list of DMA Award winners here.

Another Breakthrough

Earlier this week the shortlist for this year’s DMA Breakthrough Award, sponsored by The Economist, were announced.

Entries came from 11 different Universities and Colleges around the UK, with students studying anything from advertising and marketing to graphic design and psychology. The shortlist included two of our current HND students, Sam Haynes and Jennifer Grieve, who submitted a standout solution for the Economist's direct mail brief. The winner(s) will take home a paid internship at a top agency and a £1,000 cash prize, with second place pocketing £500 and third place receiving £250.

Last year our HND student Ayesha Islam's submission for the East of England Co-Op brief took the Breakthrough Award, and she won a month-long placement in London at Proximity.

Sam and Jennifer will be travelling to London on Dec 6th to the DMA Awards - good luck guys!

Our YCN winners!

Our YCN Winners Catriona Munro and Liam Philp attended the YCN Awards at the Barbican in London with tutors Chris Hughes and Alex Gunn.  The students were commended for their response to the Orchard Pig brief. This year YCN saw the biggest amount of entries in its 15 year history, with Art Schools, Colleges and Universities from all over the world submitting competition work.

This is the 13th and 14th YCN Awards our students have won since 2008.  Catriona and Liam are just entering their final year of study on our Visual Communication / Graphic Design course and have a very bright future.  Well done guys!

More photos of the evening here on the YCN website.

Showing Off More Winners

On the back of A Brief Student Show, our hugely successful one night exhibition last week at the Fruitmarket Gallery, we've had a flurry of award wins for our design students, across all three study years - NC, HNC and HND.

In the NC year (our introductory foundation year), Aga Pomaranska won both the Richard Demarco Award and the Creative Student of the Year Awards at the College's internal prize-giving event - a first for our courses. One of the most influential figures in the Scottish arts world, Demarco is a co-founder of the Traverse Theatre and founder of the Richard Demarco Gallery. As a Trustee of the College, his award is given each year for outstanding achievement in Art & Design at the College. Aga will be continuing her studies next year on the HND Graphic Design course.


Aga Pomaranska with her Awards

In the HNC year, Catriona Munro and Liam Philp both won a YCN Commendation for the Orchard Pig brief. YCN is an important award, with thousands of entries from UK and international Universities and Art Schools, and these wins represent our 13th and 14th Commendations since 2008. The guys can now look forward to an exciting visit to London in September for the YCN Awards.

Finally, HND student Charlie Law had to leave the our final show early to get to Edinburgh's Corn exchange for the Marketing Society Awards, where he had been shortlisted for the Star Creative Student.


Charlie with presenter Laura Whitmore and Star Awards Chair, Paul Condron.

Charlie fought off competition from nominees at DJCAD and ECA to pick up our 4th win in 5 years at Scotland's showcase celebration in the Marketing sector.  Charlie starts a placement at Digitaslbi this week and will be the toast of the agency. Well done to all!

More:
Marketing Society Scotland 2016 Award Winners
YCN 2016 Student Commendations
HND Exhibition Sampler from A Brief Student Show

TES FE Awards

We were in London recently at the TES FE Awards, where our HND course gained a nomination for the Partnership Initiative in the Employer Engagement category. The awards celebrate dedication and expertise in the Further Education provision across the whole of the UK.

Curriculum Manager Neil Manning accompanied the design tutors to the event, held at London's Grosvenor Hotel, along with two of our Mentors, Kirsten Murray and Kat Summers, both from Teviot Creative.  A full list of nominations, winners and the official photo gallery are available at the TES website http://www.tesfeawards.co.uk

YCN Commendations

Congratulations to four of our HNC students, who picked up YCN Commendations today for their project submissions.

Liam Henderson and Aiste Piechaviciute won for J20, with Annabel Gibb and Kirsten Bell winning their commendation for TopDeck Travel.  We'll be accompanying them down to London in September to the awards ceremony. The full list of winners is available on the YCN website.


J20 - Aiste Peichaviciute + Liam Henderson - 'the element of..'











Topdeck - Annabel Gibb + Kirsten Bell - #livelikealocal

Design Success at the Scottish Digital Awards

Jordan(left) and Mark receive their award from Metadigital Director John MacFarlane. Pic @Herald DBA.

We're celebrating a second national award in the space of week after three of our 2014 graduates lifted the student award at the 2014 Herald Scottish Digital Business Awards last night.

The event, held in Glasgow's Grand Central Hotel, gathered together more than 250 industry professionals as the industry recognised commercial success across Scotland in digital technologies and strategies. The evening was hosted by BBC Scotland's Catriona Shearer and featured talks from Mike Neilson (Head of Digital for the Scottish Government) and John Maxwell Hobbs (Head of Digital at BBC Scotland).

The student award, sponsored by metadigital, went jointly to our HND Visual Communication graduates Ryan Allan, Mark Phillips and Jordan Pollock for their Lockdown campaign at The Royal Albert Hall, a YCN project which "impressed the judges with its innovative, creative and distinctive branding."

This year the awards had a record entry, and the other shortlisted teams in the category came from Glasgow Caledonian University and Glasgow University.  Tutors Helena Good and Chris Hughes were there to celebrate the occasion, but unfortunately one of the winning trio, Ryan Allan, was on holiday in Tenerife. Thankfully, social media meant that he didn't have to wait long to find out the result!  The other shortlisted teams in the category came from Glasgow Caledonian University and Glasgow University.

David Craik, Partner at Bright Solutions and a judge on the panel, commented "This was an outstanding submission. It's unusual to see such strong conceptual work as well as a professional level of execution from such young designers."

We had some extra news to celebrate on the night as digital professional of the year award went to Scott Walker, of Edinburgh agency LEWIS, one of our longest serving mentoring agencies and supporters of the course.

- Full list of winners and gallery at the Digital Awards website
- Check out some of the visuals from the Lockdown submission here
- Read a report of the awards night in the Glasgow Herald