Tom Tobia Lecture & Workshop

Designer and Futures Pioneer Tom Tobia recently held a workshop with 3rd year Graphic Design students, the afternoons activities involved creating a prototype casing that had the ergonomics to fit all smart phones while retaining a high quality aesthetic. The group was divided into teams to work on different variations of the brief and came up with a lot of interesting solutions.

Tom also held a lecture for all students and lecturers at Plymouth College of Art, where he discussed how he works with people, groups, organisations and institutions to design and explore ideas for social change. He has a lengthy and impressive résumé including having worked for D&AD, Future:Gov and even presented his own TED talk at TEDx Youth Hackney.

More recently Tom is focusing on community led projects and has founded a number of programmes such as Meet Market (which supports young people to develop confidence and transferable skills) and Assemble & Join (a community led micro-manufacturing workshop. His latest venture being Makerversity at Somerset House, a shared making and learning space which aims to provide affordable and accessible space for experimentation, production and enterprise.

Demand Conflict Free Electronics

Third year student Matt Wilson's animation entitled 'Demand Conflict Free Electronics' has been featured on Noah Scalin's blog: osocio.org

Noah Scalin is an American artist, known for his creation of the award winning Skull-A-Day art project weblog. He runs the socially conscious design and consulting firm Another Limited Rebellion (ALR Design) in Richmond, Virginia. Noah is also the author of several books on creativity, art, and design including 'The Design Activist's Handbook'.

'Demand Conflict Free Electronics' is an awareness campaign that aims to educate people about conflict minerals being used in electronics. The campaign animates a script using simple vector graphics to illustrate a powerful story to convince people to support charities and demand a stop to conflict minerals being used in electronics. 

You can view the full project here or to see more of Matt's work, take a look at his website: www.mattwilsondesigns.co.uk

PCA - BA Fashion Show

Last week saw the Plymouth College of Art BA Fashion Show start off with a bang!  

Two of our own students from the Graphic Design course third year – Sophie Willcox and Jessica Hamley have created some beautiful posters, invitations and the Fashion Show Look book and on top of that Benjamin Parker, also from the third year Graphic Design course has created some amazing motion graphics for the backdrops. 

Design Hub members Sam Donohoe and Amy Eaton were also involved as models for the show.  

Plymouth Herald has also given the show some exposure here, where you can read a bit more about the event and view some photos from the night.

Pop-up shop

BA/FD Graphic Design programme from Plymouth College of Art opened a pop-up shop venue in Drake Circus shopping mall to showcase student work. An exhibition was set up, along with a series of workshop activities in beautiful hand made printed cards by Hannah Baldwin, stencilled t-shirt printing by Ross Edwards, portrait photography by Tatsu Ishikawa, type design by David Cooper, letter press by Danni Goss and Emily Clark along with the Design Hub team members (Zara Walker, Claude Compere, Eliot Sleep, Sam Donohoe) working on live projects where a studio set up was created. This allowed public to interact with students and see what the programme offers. 

Year 3 students used the space to self promote their upcoming event - Summer exhibition at PCA and New Designers, in London.

These beautiful posters "lets fill this town with Graphic Design" designed by typography and calligraphic lecturer Paul Mattock was a big hit and many got sold. Numerous other pieces of work were sold within the Design Hub Outlet (an online site in development), as well as commissions that came through for our alumni.
All in all, a great successful event that was valuable for marketing the programme, showcase of student work on display with good sales, and above all a good student experience. Fantastic. 
Further images can be seen through our other online presence - https://www.facebook.com/TheDesignHubPCA   

(Photographs by Tatsu Ishikawa, Danni Goss and Kamal Gohil)

Plymouth In Fashion

Over the past few weeks The Design Hub team have been working hard in cooperation with Plymouth City Centre Company to promote this years Plymouth In Fashion Event. The event takes place from the 11th to 16th June at the Piazza, Plymouth city centre and will feature both designs from the fashion students here at PCA and ranges from various stores in Plymouth. Keep an eye out for our posters in and around the city centre or pick up a leaflet from one of the many participating high street stores. 

Young Creative Network

Recently we had a visiting lecture from YCN's Creative Producer Ally Carter. She introduced the Graphic Design department to their annual Student and Professional Awards programmes and discussed the broader work of YCN. 

The Young Creative Network is a small team that helps organisations around the world to connect with their members and find talent for their campaigns and commissions. 

You can find out more about what they are doing through their website:

www.ycn.org

Tom Foley

Recently the students had the pleasure of having typographer Tom Foley visit. Thomas Foley (1983) is a graphic designer, typographer and type designer currently living and working in London. 

Thomas graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2009 with an MA in Communication Design and has since worked with Polimekanos, Micha Wiedmann Studio and Atelier Dreibholz. Thomas has carried out lectures and workshops at universities including Central Saint Martins, UWE, Limerick School of Art and Design, Dun Laoghaire Institute, and the University of Santa Clara. Thomas is currently working as a Font Designer at Dalton Maag.

Tom delivered a captivating talk and revealed the tediousness that can be involved with designing a new font, but also the enjoyment in being able to create something so usable.

Tom also ran a workshop with the first year students, to help with their Art and Language module. The students learned a lot about the basics in typography and some new interesting techniques in context. 

The lecture was informative and and the students produced some excellent work with the help of Tom.

Photography by: Tatsu Ishikawa

Jose A Garrido workshop results

Below are the results from a typography workshop run by Jose A  Garrido. This work was displayed in and around the studio.

Noem9studio

Fabiola Correas Lisbona

Fabiola Correas Lisbona

Lucy Taylor

Oran Kane

GFSmith

For most graphic designers, paper is very exciting. So when Mark Jessett a representative at GF Smith was invited for a presentation, the graphic design students couldn't wait.

Mark Jessett had everyone captivated, and brought along with him enough paper to keep everyone amused. He answered questions, and showed what new technology can do, for example a paper that becomes transparent in light, who'd have thought it! 

The afternoon was fun filled, but also everyone was supplied with information that was both valuable, but easy to digest.

The students would probably have the same lecture again if they had the chance, as many of them have said it was their favourite lecture ever. He of course had some wonderful paper gifts that he gave away.

Even staff with a broader knowledge than the student thought that the afternoon was a valuable experience. Paper is extremely important in design and it's making connections with the best companies that really make it easier to get the job done to the best standard.

Check out GF Smiths website: http://www.gfsmith.com/
Photography by: Ashley Henderson

Jose Garrida

The Graphic Design department recently had the pleasure of having exchange student Jose Garrida visit and study for while. He might have been studying here, but there were also chances to learn from him, he did a lecture to show off his work as well as a typography workshop. 

Jose, presented his work to the majority of the graphic design department and the majority were blown away by the quality and quantity of it for a student. You can check out is work by clicking here or visting here http://www.noem9studio.com/.

During the talk, Jose gave the students here advice and shared his experience in the industry, he said that he found the website www.behance.cm the most helpful tool to him. If you're interested in following Jose on behance head here http://www.behance.net/Noem9. 

Jose's Typography Workshop

Jose ran a typography workshop with some of the graphic design students, the workshop was simple but created some very beautiful work. 

During the workshop the students created some digital typography work, and used acetone too transfer print the work. This is a simple technique, but a lot of the students haven't tried it before. The work was displayed in the studio and admired by everyone who came in.

Photography by: Joanne Cookney

Library of Independent Exchange

Library of Independent Exchange, often abbreviated as L.I.E. The founders and directors are Mark James and Christopher Green.

'L.I.E (Library of Independent Exchange) was founded in Plymouth in September 2011, conceived as a temporary arts reference library and events space.
The core aims of the L.I.E are to develop discussions and exchange, exploring the processes of publishing, collaboration, and dissemination.'

Recently the two designers came and paid a visit to Plymouth College of Art, not only to show case their work, but to also set a live project brief with the HE Graphic Design students. More will be revealed later on... They create beautiful publications and showcase them in equally beautiful ways. 

Above is an example of how they would set up an exhibition. 
Image taken from their website. 
Until the project is complete with the students, there is plenty more to look at from these talented guys over on their website, http://www.l-i-e.co.uk/ and their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/libraryofindependentexchange.

1st photograph taken by Tatsu Ishikawa

Sam Winston

Sam Winston completed a BTEC ND Graphic Design in 1998 at the Plymouth College of Art, and returned last year in December, 2012 to show current BA/FD Graphic Design students and staff just how far he's come. 

Winston's prolific career features work for Wallpaper magazine and the New York Times, which is incredible for any designer or artist to be able to say they have acheived. During his talk, he mentioned about his most talked about work. Inspiring the audience into taking their work that little bit further and push themselves to see what they could acheive. 

A truly inspiring and motivational individual. The students and staff that were able to attend the event were talking about it for weeks, it isn't often that an opportunity to meet someone so talented comes up, it's always refreshing when they share the same passion. 

Sam himself has said about giving talks and lectures, 'I have been teaching for close to 10 years and as time goes by I am realising what I can and cannot do.  I certainly can’t change people – I can’t give people things they have never had and I can’t make ‘things better’. My ambitions of help, are lost in a sea of complexity way beyond my control.  I often find teaching endeavours blossoming into both beautiful and stupid fruits. One of the more ironic harvests of this pursuit is that it’s changed me far more than it’s changed anyone else.'

You can see more of his work by visiting his website by clicking here or typing http://www.samwinston.com/ into your search bar.

Photography by Tatsu Ishikawa