BA (Hons) GRAPHIC + DIGITAL DESIGN

OUR GRAPHIC AND DIGITAL DESIGN programmes balance active research investigation, practical experimentation and critical thinking to prepare students for careers in the creative industries. Students develop excellent communication skills, control of creative practices within Graphic Design, as well as in fields close to their discipline—spatial design, fine arts, animation. Guided by our expert teams of academic researchers, practitioners and makers, students explore areas such as typography, visual grammar, data visualisation, narrative, branding, advertising, fine art practices, photography, motion graphics and moving image. Through a blend of lectures, studio-based workshops, technical tutorials and industry events we invite students to develop their knowledge and experience of design theory and practice. Popular career options for our Graphic and Digital Design graduates include roles in creative teams and agencies, particularly those specialising in print, publishing, packaging, branding and interaction design, as well as those focused on animation and moving image. During their time with us, students develop an appreciation of design as an area of intellectual investigation, critical thinking, creative visualisation and making—explored through active engagement and professional practice.

Emma Tyrrell

Free Flow Drawing officialdesign.et@gmail.com

My project is based on the art, concept and meaning of Mandalas, learned through my personal journey. Through my experiences and observations, I found a new method of drawing to help me reach a new level of enlightenment. This is because mandalas didn't really provide everything I needed from an art form and an art therapy. My drawing method is called Free Flow. It has no rules. The drawings are driven by emotions and thoughts at random which is contrapuntal to mandalas which are structured, geometric and infinitely self-repeating.

Paula Rodriguez

The Mirror Deck alejandra_barahona@hotmail.es alejandrabarahona.com

Mental health in young adults has been damaged through isolation and lockdown. Understanding all the changes during this period has been affecting the emotions of young adults, causing mental disorders like anxiety or depression. Understanding our feelings is necessary to develop good and balanced mental health.

The Mirror Deck is inspired by different introspection exercises that will help you go through your feelings. Emotions are a rollercoaster, sometimes up, sometimes down. The Mirror Deck is a card-based game with 22 cards with the aesthetic of the Tarot. Three different exercises were developed with the help of a professional psychologist with varying questions to make us reflect on what we feel and why. The first question is, who am I?

Martina Vasileva

Play as Creative Exploration mmartina.vass@gmail.com martinavasileva.cargo.site

My project questions the topic of defining different working processes, and how they shape design outcomes and the creative industry as a whole. I focused on the idea of play and the many ways in which it happens (or doesn’t). Much like children, who instinctively come up with new variations by the power of their imagination, adults can also wander the landscape of their life by discovering new terrains to explore.

The "what if" of any situation opens the possibilities of a thousand more movements. I visualised this idea by using my writing as a starting point and inviting the reader to participate in a never-ending “deep dive” into the topic of play through my interactive website and posters.

Kierendeep Lali

Meditation in Design portfoliotwentyfour.cargo.site/LALI

Let’s face it; designers have it tough. We juggle with so many problems in a day, from client briefs to deadlines to creative block, constant software updates, positive/negative feedback, and last but certainly not least, hours on end in front of a laptop screen. No wonder we are stressed.

This exhibition piece is an exploration of my interest in meditative mark making in relation to my religion, Sikhism. This project has been a way for me to disconnect from the outside world and really focus on my work.

Giada Vitiello

Private_Public_Space graphic@giadavitiello.com giadavitiello.com

The project focuses on the perception of private space during the last year (2020-2021). It shows how, thanks to technology, public and personal actions overlapped, creating a mix of different spaces inside my bedroom. A bedroom is nothing else than a private space where people spend their intimate moments, yet the same bedroom transformed into a collection of public and private spaces.

My outcome is a website where people are allowed to enter my private room, look at my actions inside it and even move my objects — adding my bedroom inside a digital platform that is public aims to highlight this duality as well as making my room even more public.

This piece is to show the relationship and the effects the surrounding environment has on my hand made structure. The focus point is creating something that doesn’t necessarily fit within its environment and exploring how the environment responds to that over time.

Therefore the structures have been made for anything to happen to them, this even includes effects caused by people, as you are part of the environment. This gives you access to do what you want to this structure including writing on it, drawing on it, moving it etc. As for moving it you will find that the top three pyramids move, however, you will need two people to simultaneously move them to lay them down, creating a relationship and journey between people and the structure but also bringing people together.

Samuel Hall

Environmental Structures samuellhalluk@gmail.com

An exploration project designed to see if a mirror can create different interpretations and meanings depending on the environment. In this project I am taking mirror images with a digital camera through a plastic A5 mirror. Gradually, I am gathering information from what the plastic mirror sees that I create through a very personal method.

With its effect and features of monochromatic imagery, it produces the sense of the past, as if my back view had witnessed something. This method was used every five minutes within an hour. Despite the fact that these are simple images that I am taking, they portray what the mirror seeing reflects, whether real or not. This is reflected with ambiguous, distorted images captured within a place. Are we being told the truth by the mirror?

Samuel Adamaze

Reflected image adamaze02200026@gmail.com samueladamaze.cargo.site/

Elena Kocheva

The Value of Napkins thisiselena.co.uk The project explored the value of collections by looking through the spectre of an almost 30 years old paper napkin collection. Viewing collectibles from different perspectives forms an understanding of not only the physical, but also of the emotional and psychological side. The outcome showcases the value of storytelling, imperfections, and colour. It is all hidden behind plain white napkins that bring the fourth aspect of value-texture. Therefore, people can feel the napkins even though the napkins from the collection can not be present in the exhibition. The depth and meaning of such ephemeral objects like the paper napkin can be underestimated and, on that account, people are faced with plain white paper napkins. The audience has to engage in touching them, reviewing them closely, lifting layer by layer to get to the true essence.

Jack Loft

Slimed jack.loft99@gmail.com

Slimed is a hypothetical game created to visually explore mechanics exploring the accessibility needs of Amelia. Amelia is my younger sister with down syndrome. Over the past year we’ve explored various genres and platforms of different games and discovered some of the issues Amelia encounters. I then began to explore gameplay mechanics that can be used to help Amelia through the experience and used Slimed to visualise some of these mechanics.

When it comes to accessibility it’s important to consider as many perspectives as possible and this goes hand in hand with providing the player with options to adapt the experience to their specific needs, and these options can range from changing the colour of the text, to slowing down the speed the game is played at.

Slimed is specifically created with the gameplay mechanic of death resist, as Amelia always finds a way to die within games, and this is her biggest hurdle, so to counteract this, in Slimed the character is immortal.

Dorin Seremet

Coronavirus Guidelines - Background Noise dorinseremet.com

The project is based on the fluctuation of the Coronavirus social distancing guidelines in navigation and social interaction. The research and feedback gathered throughout the year resulted in an interpretation of the public’s sentiment on the guidelines and their meaning. For most people, it becomes static noise — something in the background — but which fails to communicate its message because of the expectations that we, the members of the public already have in relation to this topic.

Justin Gaskin

OVERLOAD jgaskin7@icloud.com

This interactive installation is a visual and sensory interpretation of stress and anxiety. With an overload of emotional disruption throughout lockdown, this piece replicates the experience of feeling emotionally unbalanced in an environment.

Publication

Exhibition

Poppy Quy

Becoming One poppyquy.cargo.site After producing a publication exploring how to become one with an object, using methods such as transition and spoken conversation, I moved to present the mutualistic exchanges between human and object in a piece that would be experienced in an exhibition space. In this word and image series, I spoke to people about their favourite object, they were asked what memories they had associated with the item, if they benefited one another and how they felt about its mortality. Using the transcripts, the conversations were transferred into pieces of poetry. Displaying the reliance, boundaries and holistic effects object relationships have on our short and surrounded existence.

Laura Stepak

The Choice laura.stepak@autonomik.pl

“The Choice” is an experience that allows the viewer to be a part of the story. It is the audience that, through choices that they are making, decides how the plot goes. There is no such thing as a good or bad decision — the main purpose is to explore the world. Even though the story has a beginning, it ends only when the viewer decides to quit. In order to allow everyone to experience it to the fullest, cards with QR codes were made - so it can be accessible on mobile devices any time.

Zainab Rehman

Melting Exotic zainabrehman12@gmail.com

Exotification is the process by which exotic items and people are put on display for their otherness. Melting Exotic is an exhibition which surrounds the idea of household cultural items being archived in ice and exhibited into a new, less customary environment. This is to explore the impact of being labelled and exhibited as the term ‘exotic’. The objects being displayed in ice signifies the museumification of cultural items, they are stolen and displayed, just like in an exhibition. Yet, the ice begins to melt when videos exploring the daily use of such household items are projected. The more exposure the ice gets, the quicker it will melt away. This alludes to the idea that the more representation people of colour are given, the more their way of living will be understood and the less ‘exotic’ and ‘othered’ they become.

Kornelija Bruzaite

Things I did kornelijabruzaite.com

My experiments helped me to see the influence of my environment on how I think, design and live. I began to be both an actual person and an observer that reflects on my day to day actions while questioning my surroundings.

My final research outcome/installation contains three elements. First, a list of all the objects I own, second, a film that shows how I dismantled my bicycle and put it back together, and the third is a book that contains all my thoughts and experiments I did.

Our superstitions are a part of our core belief system that stems from experiences. We like to draw connections between reoccurring and unrelated events. We want to form the reasoning for our experiences and none of them are a coincidence. The characteristic of a superstition is such that it is rooted in avoiding bad luck or gaining good. However, bad luck introduces fear while good luck inspires an enhanced performance.

Therefore, this exhibit reframes superstitions by focusing more on the good luck. It holds a collection of lucky objects that materializes this belief system that take the form of rings, necklaces, etc. It records their owners’ experience with lucky encounters because of these objects. As the owners describe their stories of confidence, magic and support, the wearable objects combine the imprints and brings heir luck closer to us. You, the viewer, can wear, experience and interact with them the way you like and experience the luck. So, what is your good luck story?

Shriya Sant

Reframing superstitions sant.shriya@yahoo.com

Alice Bertazzi

Things In Correlation alicebertazzi@gmail.com alicebertazzi.co.uk

What is erased? What is rejected? What is kept? This is a collection of images and objects exposed in connection to the events associated with them as an investigation into the bonds they forge between people over time and space. It is an exploration based on understanding the role and the importance of materiality in recalling moments.

Can materiality become a physical manifestation of something that is absent? These pieces came together after they were discovered from different locations at different times. The objects show personal research that started from a discovery of photographs inside a tin box. The photos become an archive of their own. Photography acts as the way the objects are preserved and staged. It is an archive of forms and details. Through revealing objects from a private collection to a public space, they become a tool of connection.

Performance

Shahanaz Begum Ahmed

In the name of Honour shahanaz.ahmed@hotmail.co.uk

My exhibition piece is to raise awareness about honour culture amongst the south Asian community in a very light-hearted and subtle manner. It touches upon patriarchy and the everyday abuse experienced by women as a result of honour. The wall is coated with individual permission slips, whereby the audience has the ability to take off and fill in a permission slip.

Alongside this, I have framed my definition of what I think honour truly means to me. The central piece is a video titled, ‘The Recipe to honour’. This video expresses my views on what I think of the ideal ‘honourable’ man within the south Asian community.

Ivana Koemdzhieva

Reimagining Bulgarian Embroidery ivana.koemdzhieva@gmail.com ivanakoemdzhieva.com/Graphic-Design

A project exploring Bulgarian embroidery through a piece inspired by the Bulgarian traditions and hand craft techniques. The work focuses on a contemporary reading of Bulgarian embroidery and looking for an answer to why this art form is becoming outdated. The project examines the essence of this traditional art and analysing the symbolism behind it.

I am investigating the contemporary social and artistic trends in relation to the ones in the past and noting the successful and unsuccessful previous attempts for the revival of Bulgarian embroidery. This is done in order to provide a new stable foundation for modernising this classical craft. I aim to demonstrate that the “forgotten” arts still have a place in our modern life due to their versatile use and unique beauty.

My exhibition piece combines multiple key features from Bulgarian folklore and forms a new contemporary but still traditional look for Bulgarian embroidery.

Sabrina De Martin

This is Follina graphic@sabrinademartin.com sabrinademartin.com

I focused my project on Follina, a small town in northern Italy, surrounded by greenery. I explored it from a citizens' point of view, presenting the interlocutor with testimonies, personal stories and images. Through my work, I want to bring, young people in particular, closer to this village. I chose to focus the content on citizens' experiences, emphasising and highlighting even the smallest things.

Hafsah Begum

The Story of Adahm (PBUH) & Mischievous Iblis. Hafsah.B@hotmail.co.uk

← The Story of Prophet Adahm (PBUH) and mischievous Iblis is an outcome created to re-educate my younger self, narrating the Islamic story of Adahm (PBUH) with fun and abstract illustrations designed by her present self, for her younger self to enjoy and to have a positive influence. It presents my younger self in the knowledge of the life of Adahm, knowing where the sinful act stems from and it teaches her, which will reflect my everyday life significantly.

The exhibition for my younger self takes us back to Hafsah at the age of 5+ in her cosy and comfortable reading space and is an experience inviting the audience to join me to hand her the story and finally watching her read and experience deciphering the moral ethics in good or bad, cause and effect and consequence in the story.

I invite the audience to join me in this significant moment where her life will start to make sense with this book fulfilling it's purpose in operating an essential role to my younger self spiritually when fathoming Islamic stories and their meanings through the use of fun and an exciting illustration book created by her present self.

Gergana Vasileva

ACT NOW protest group gerulina1988@gmail.com

Joe Andrew Woodman

My 80 days of Lockdown jwoodman00@gmail.com jwgraphics.space

My exhibition and work associated aims to look at my experiences, thoughts and feelings in lockdown. Throughout the course of the 80 days the experiment was conducted, whenever I felt overwhelmed with any emotion, I'd begin to write down on a scrap piece of paper as to how I felt. Whether it be negative and cliché or positive and happy, it would go onto the paper. Eventually I'd translate these feelings into images and photography and use UV to write down those thoughts that perhaps people may consider taboo or not often spoken about so openly in society. Furthermore as time went on and as lockdown gradually began to relax, I began capturing those moments I spent outside of my bedroom, the same four walls, to show the contrast in thoughts. In all, my work acts as a reflection on my lockdown journey that kept a close look on my mental health that perhaps other people could relate to as well.

Verity Rock

I remember the radishes verityrockdesigns.co.uk

So much of our lives are spent on one side of a camera lens or the other. We document our lives, our happy moments, pretty things and everything in between because we want to remember it all. We place our trust in devices and clouds to share the burden of remembering because we know, in time, memory fades. Our technology isn’t immune to the ravages of time either. With every share, every upload, download and trip around the digital space — a high-tech game of pass the pixelated parcel — we lose little details, a few pixels here and there. This only serves to make our photos more precious, and our need to protect and collect them more fervent.

Bianca Magalhaes de Resende

Wasting Time Bianca_m_r@hotmail.com

My Project is about the use of social media, as our generation uses social as a basis for every action. In today’s world, they would rather live the “Instagramable” life, instead of their life at home. Since I’m also part of this fake vs real life generation, I see how much time I have wasted on my phone, scrolling through my timeline or taking pictures rather than enjoying the real moments.

Boryana Chenkova

Made Killers bobbychenkova240616@gmail.com

→ This project focuses on investigating the effects of physical and mental abuse and how they can form a person. More specifically how they can create a killer. Looking into the power and vulnerability of the mind, and how the biggest pain comes from the ones that are closest to us.

Being able to understand the reasoning behind people such as Arthur Shawcross and what in their life affected and damaged them so badly that they can take another human beings’ life away? As mental health, trauma and abuse are often neglected, seeing the effects that lead to extreme behaviour will make us as people, as a society more open-minded and more willing to understand and help other individuals.

Mihaela Mincheva

The Anonymous Book Club of Prenzlauer Berg mihaela@mincheva.co.uk mincheva.co.uk

The Anonymous Book Club of Prenzlauer Berg addresses the books that are given away in a neighbourhood in Berlin and their discovery through walking. The value in this act is found in the idea of exchange between people forming an anonymous book club where books circulate within the neighbourhood but the giver and taker remain unknown. The daily appearance of new books on different streets is a way of mapping the area in which the valuable interchange takes place. The borders of the area are not defined but therefore explored through the act of walking.

As a response, a website is designed so people can become part of the community exploring the city streets of Berlin whilst discovering books. Visitors are also invited to share a book they like leaving a note for the next person to find. In addition, the series of walks that took place in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin are documented in the form of a visual diary called “The Walking Journal”. The journal explores the notion of community, human relations and space through findings — books and is my way of contributing to the community as a designer.