Degree Show Catalogue 2022 School of Design MDes Fashion & Textile Design MDes Graphics/Illustration/Photography MDes Interior Design MSc Product Design Engineering
Professor Stephen Bottomley Head of the School of Design A warm welcome to the School of Design’s Postgraduate show and this publication, one of the accompanying catalogues representing our master’s programmes within Fashion and Textiles, Interior Design, Product Design Engineering or Graphics, Illustration and Photography.
Introduction
As a school we are all immensely proud of the achievements of our exceptionally talented and creative students. Collectively they have overcome the significant challenges of the Covid pandemic to attend and complete their post-graduate studies with us at the Glasgow School of Art. My sincere thanks to all our staff who have worked so hard to support them.
We are delighted that the Reid building on Renfrew Street houses a physical exhibition of the master’s degree shows across its many levels. This contemporary building, with its unique and individual architectural features, is a magnificent backdrop to the stunning work on display at the heart of this celebration open 2nd to 9th September. An online digital showcase also accompanies the physical exhibition and will provided further information and access for those unable to be with us in Scotland.
Our ground floor gallery space is shared across all our post graduate programmes providing a student driven, co-curated and collaborative reflective showcase. This exciting intervention will act as a taster for the individual programme shows that await above and beyond. This display will remain open a little longer than the studio-based exhibitions, affording next year’s students the opportunity to see the work of our latest graduates within this exciting multi-disciplinary format.
Whether on-line or in-person thank you for taking time to investigate the ideas factory that is the Glasgow School of Art’s School of Design and discover the vibrant talent who are the graduating masters of their disciplines in the class of 2022.
Brian ProgrammeCairns
After several years of Covid, I am delighted to invite you to view the work of the students on the MDes Graphics/Illustration/Photography programmes and to celebrate their achievements in a physical degree show in the School of Design’s Reid Building.
Despite the difficulties that these students have experienced, due to the pandemic, they have demonstrated adaptability and resilience that can only be beneficial to their future practice and any future employer. As the students graduate and move into the next stage of their career the team wish them well as they join the extended family of GSA graduates that will continue to innovate and explore new ways of seeing and thinking about the world.
MDes Communication Design
“Join the extended family of GSA graduates that will continue to innovate and explore new ways of seeing and thinking about the world.”
Staff Team Brian Cairns Colin Faulks Ross Hogg Peter Locke Andy MatthewStarkWalkerdine Leader
The students have produced some excellent work across the range of disciplines which explore how they communicate their ideas and thoughts in an ethically aware and sustainable manner in society. Projects range from exploring the Chinese education system to children’s picture-books, animation, concrete poetry and reportage illustration along with more conceptual works.
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I am a Chinese graphic designer with an interest in linguistics, specifically the communication or transmission of meaning through written language. I have developed an investigative and authorial graphic design practice, taking in the creative processes of; handlettering, typography, concrete poetry, illustration & printmaking.
“We’ll know the day after tomorrow about tomorrow.” “Conversing with a wise person is like listening to the words.” These sentences seem to say something—yet say nothing. Collected under the label “nonsense literature”, these type of word memes are shared across the contemporary Chinese internet environment. The aim of this project is to explore and respond to this nonsense literature, critically analysing its perceived value. The work examines resistance and rebellion as the roots of nonsense literature alongside embracing the spirit of play and humour in their creation. Chinese internet memes have a certain degree of untranslatability; any attempted translation into a different language is an interpretation and has involved the development of new visual languages.
IIllustrationamanillustrator and communication designer, with experience of living in Canada and the UK. I draw inspiration from my personal experience of engaging with the world as a source of inspiration. I am interested in graphic approaches with complex patterns and find great satisfaction in intricate details in my illustrations.
THE GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART Graphic Design
Hao
↘ rena-chen.com ↘ renachen.xy@gmail.com ↘ @Renachen.xyc
Throughout my study at GSA I have investigated the intersection of illustration and text/type as image; exploring how structure, composition, line, and mark-making can influence or effect the communication of a specific concept or message. I have been influenced the contemporary Chinese internet environment and the rise in popularity of internet memes and word games to communicate with my friends — exploring the potential of concrete poetry to communicate the value of these so-called “Nonsense Literatures.”
RenaChaiChen
‘Behind the Scars’ is a project which explores the stories behind the Chinese treasures in the British Museum. These Chinese artifacts have been destroyed and transported around the world for various political and economic reasons. Printmaking was used as a means to communicate the treatment of theses artifacts both conceptually and physically. ‘Behind the Scars’ reveals the cultural appropriation of these artefacts and the stories that lie behind them.
↘ h-a-o.myportfolio.com ↘ cimubaigao@126.com ↘ @hao_graphicdesigner
I am a Chinese graphic designer and visual communicator specialising in branding and packaging design. My work is based on a visual language using simple graphic forms and colour. I use my graphic design practice to address contemporary cultural concerns and social issues; specifically, around the environmental pressures we are facing. I am guided by ideas and thinking around sustainability. I see the potential for design to be a force for change and am exploring its capacity to inform and impact contemporary society and the short-sighted, disposable, consumer Myculture.project
proposes a Museum of Sustainable Sustenance pop-up for the upcoming COP27 conference. The museum’s aim is to draw the attention of attendees, policy makers, corporations, and activists to the burden on our environment caused by industrial food production and single use packaging. I have designed a collection of environmentally friendly packaging that are screen printed using sustainable vegetable or fruit inks. The materials are all recyclable and environmentally friendly. After fulfilling their primary function, the packaging can be reused or recycled into new resources for future use.
↘ dk.wenzhe@gmail.com ↘ @dwzgraphicdesign
I am a graphic designer with a previous background in interior design. During my time here at The Glasgow School of Art, I have focused on information visualisation and the simplification of graphic forms. My self-directed project work is informed by in-depth research and utilises various techniques, such as; typography, information analysis, graphic production and printing techniques to achieve a sympathetic visual response. My final project is a visual identity for an educational conference, the aim of which being to inform the application of Feng Shui in the home. Using the five elements of Feng Shui in traditional Chinese culture, I have produced a series of pattern compositions to signify a balanced relationship between shape and colour—which is then applied to a range of outputs. This simple, textural, response for the conference hopes to be informative for a public event whilst signaling to the attendees how to arrange the furniture in their home to achieve a balanced and comfortable living environment.
Graphic Design
Graphic Design
7 MDES GRAPHICS/ILLUSTRATION/PHOTOGRAPHY
↘ huii.fang11@gmail.com ↘ @huii.fang Fang
Wenzhe Dong Floy
I began to think about human and nature during COP26, and I think garbage is a good medium for illustrating that connection. Rubbish is the product of human society, which has no use after it’s been used.
I was inspired by the approach of coding to simulate how garbage changes in the environment and visualize it as graphics. I designed an exhibition series based on this visualization design.
The purpose of my work is to redesign the garbage that we ignore so that people are more aware of the connection between human and nature. The aim of my project is to change how people cognize garbage.
Liangda Huang
Frog Blues is a proposed picture book which draws on my own experiences of depression. It explores themes of community and isolation, as well as the palliative effect of music. The narrative experienced multiple rounds of redrafting before coming to feature animal characters, who all live in a real-world park not dissimilar to Kelvingrove Park in Glasgow. My intention with the book was to create something which didn’t explicitly discuss depression but had a meaningful subtext which could be interpreted differently by an audience of different ages. It follows my first picture book proposal, completed earlier this year, and further builds on my understanding of layout, pagination, and colour palettes.
Rebecca Guthrie
↘ liangdahuang@126.com ↘ @hliangda
↘ rebeccaguthrie.co.uk ↘ rebecca.guthrie.m@gmail.com ↘ @bex.illo Graphic Design
as an illustrator resides in making picture books for children and short comics. It hinges on a background in literature: the written word is as important to me as the inscribed image, and how the two interact is one of the most central concerns to the work I make. I am drawn to themes of community and loneliness and aim create stories for young audiences that avoid active moralising. I use traditional materials throughout most of my studio practice and believe that my work has the most potential when I am not removed from its physical making. I mainly work in watercolour, pastels, and pencils, and have extended my practice further into printmaking.
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MyIllustrationpractice
As a graphic designer with a focus on brand design, I explore various ways of expressing a brand’s core message through various forms of expression. In my view, a brand is the concrete expression of an abstract concept, and it can tell its story in different ways through design. In addition, I am constantly learning new knowledge and exploring new visual languages, striving to become an interdisciplinary designer. By combining graphic design with content from different fields, I hope to present diversified and interesting design materials. As a result, I will be able to keep my creative motivation and keep up with my designs.
HavingPhotographypreviously studied photography for 5 years, my current project work extends my practice and combines collage and mark-making along with photography and publication design. Using poetic imagery, I explore my personal history to create intimate narratives, which hopefully resonate with a universal audience.
9 MDES GRAPHICS/ILLUSTRATION/PHOTOGRAPHY
Dan Li
I have broad interests in the sphere of visual culture and am developing a design practice that is global in its outlook. My work is often inspired by contemporary social issues to which I critically reflect and then develop an authorial response; exploring my perspective and understanding of the subject matter and presented through my own visual voice or Thelanguage.connections between appearance anxiety, the impact of the “Male gaze” and idealised images of women upon the mental health of young women is well documented. It is an issue that has been some somewhat addressed by the cosmetics industry, however, as demonstrated by recent “Estee Lauder” advertisement in China—specifically, how they were presented on social media—is still very much still an issue. The ads were promoting the products by implying their potential to fulfil a male expectation of women—as objects of desire. My project takes a satirical point of view, presenting a product line for an imagined brand “Perfect Lady.” I want to encourage and empower young women to see through this outdated messaging.
↘ lidan2h@126.com ↘ @li_dan88
Yijun Huang
My life took a significant turn when I developed a bone tumour in my hand which required surgery and the eventual removal of the bone and whilst this was subsequently replaced with a part of my hip bone, the experience was traumatic and emotional as I went through painful rehabilitation to relearn how to move and operate my hand. Through my project ‘205 Bones’, (most people have 206 bones) I explore and combine the physiological and psychological scars I experienced through my illness and body. Primarily using the camera, my visual language additionally employs a range of printing/collage/mark-making and materials, which reflect on this challenging time in my life.
I am a graphic designer from Beijing. I use my practice to reflect upon and process the world as I experience it, my current project is exploring the relationship between the image of women often presented to us by advertising and the role & responsibility of graphic designers in this.
↘ Yijun.huang6@icloud.com ↘ @Yejunhuang8 Graphic Design
IIllustrationaminterested in narratives in both comics and graphic novels. My work uses traditional media and is inspired by my personal reflection on life. The common theme that runs through all of my works is a desire to connect and communicate at an emotional level with the reader.
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↘ behance.net/lijunie ↘ junimoony9@gmail.com ↘ @junimoony9
My project ‘The Con’ envisages a dystopian future where individuals are manipulated through the exploitation of personal data through algorithms which are able to predict individual’s and society’s needs and desires. The narrative is intended as a warning to society of a possible future if personal data is not protected and respected.
↘ ezgioz.com ↘ ezgiozbakkaloglu@gmail.com ↘ @ezgi.ozb Ezgi
who is inherently nosy about people’s stories, I utilise illustration and animation to explore narratives. I am inspired by the dysfunctionality and the richness of the cultural landscape I grew up in, which shapes the direction of my work. Through printmaking processes, I create animations that seek to make the ineffable tangible. Often materials such as photographs or objects are aide memoirs. I find the physicality of the printmaking process connects this materiality of Mymemories.project‘Fuar:
Ozbakkaloglu
AsIllustrationsomeone
A Counter-Memory’ is an animation series that draws attention to the collective amnesia of the 1922 Great Fire of Smyrna/Izmir by examining the urban park, Fuar built on top of its ruins. The destruction of 14.500 homes and thousands exiled marks a transformation in the city’s cultural and urban fabric. The political agenda omit this from history resulted in future generations building countermemories oblivious to Fuar’s dark past. The aim of the project to emphasize the omission that continues to present day.
Shiyun Li
↘ doudoufoto@gmail.com ↘ @doudoufoto Pan
13 MDES GRAPHICS/ILLUSTRATION/PHOTOGRAPHY
focuses on observational drawing and narrative as tools for artivism. I utilise narrative as a method to problematize situations and raise awareness. With a prior study in game design I draw on concepts of play in developing narratives that will engage the viewer.
currently based in Glasgow and my work primarily explores making through traditional analogue cameras. My photography is influenced by my previous studies in music. Indeed, musical rhythm and visual rhythm have similarities as does the notion of melodies and themes. Both of which feed into my interests in the ambient nature of space and time combined with the experiences of transitional spaces, particularly between that of man-made environments and nature.
Having grown up in an area in China that was landlocked, I only really became aware of the sea when I moved to Scotland for my postgraduate studies. Primarily through a large format camera and from the perspective of an ‘inlander’, my photographic project explores and reflects with wonderment on the unique transitional space of the coast, both natural and manmade, and the rhythmic ebb, flow and power of the sea.
My project reflects on the animalistic tendencies in human behaviour, reminding us that our instinctive responses and prejudices are primitive aspects of humanity. My project seeks to open a dialogue to discuss and explore issues in society that reveal existing patriarchal models and injustices that we experience in everyday life.
IPhotographyamaphotographer
ElizaDoudouPerraki MyIllustrationpractice
↘ elizaperraki.myportfolio.com ↘ perrakieliza@gmail.com ↘ @elaissas
EveryIllustrationdayI
↘ jakeshi.uk ↘ jakesxr@gmail.com ↘ @jakesheck_
Dominyka Sekonaite Shi
My projects are often speculative and experimental, as my inspiration comes from various distinct fields such as mathematics or urban studies.
Though we cannot always control the outcome, we should always strive to enjoy the creative process in our journey towards achieving our goals.
‘Grow’ is an animation that tells the story of flowers facing various challenges during their growth, which impacts the tumultuous paths they take. Taking inspiration from the Greek myth ‘Icarus’, the project explores the ups and downs of creativity and our yearning for success.
Jake
↘ dominykadoom.com ↘ dominyka0119@gmail.com ↘ @doomsidius wake up, I think about what to record today. I believe everything around me is interconnected. My work seeks to document these unique insights into the mundane. My Illustrations provides a magnifying glass to help me uncover the beauty of life.
ReThink-ReCycle / The Underpass is a project which challenges our creative thinking and questions the potentiality of decayed urban areas. Here I have ventured to explore a passage under the motorway in the East End of Glasgow as it accommodates some peculiar structures which seem to be designed for a reason. I aimed to reinterpret the site from different perspectives: historical, architectural, social, and philosophical. While adapting a relevant visual language that was influenced by the existing road signage, I have produced a collection of visual provocations which have manifested in a conceptual research publication and a semi-augmented exhibition: the “artworks” are accessed by scanning QR-coded captions that are spread around the underpass.
14THE GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART Graphic Design
I am an enthusiastic graphic designer and creative researcher with a strong focus on editorial design and identity. I enjoy playing with bright colours and modular structures to create engaging and interactive work.
Psychogeography is a subject I am particularly passionate about, so most of my recent work orbits around this theory. I am eager to bring the audience to discussion through collective activities, therefore I have organised project-related workshops which involved an alternative Glasgow tour that followed a single public bus route, and a spontaneous gathering under the motorway to write concrete poetry.
↘ wzf770921093@gmail.com ↘ @_geraldw Mengting Wang
飲食男女 (Dinner, Man and Woman) addresses absent love in traditional Chinese marriage with the centric scene of meal time between a married couple. Being raised in Chinese culture, I barely see romantic love in Chinese marital life other than family intimacy. Even a large group of Chinese couples conduct or maintain their marriages for the sake of others or are restrained by social morality. In this project, I have produced a creative response in the form of a publication by integrating the symbolic signs of traditional Chinese marriage. Red candles and red thread with tableware emphasise the mental distance, stagnant emotions, and sentimental vacuum that gradually formed day by day over a 30-year marriage.
15 MDES GRAPHICS/ILLUSTRATION/PHOTOGRAPHY
Wang Zifan
↘ behance.net/cpe899uc8y61e2 ↘ mengting_2021@163.com
‘Don’t Leave Me Alone’ tells the story of a dog on an adventure outside of the safe surroundings of her home. Based on personal experience, the narrative explores themes of separation anxiety and support, realising the importance of friends.
working with both traditional and digital media with a keen interest in narrative. My practice focuses on children’s picture books aiming to evoke a sense of childlike excitement. I convey meaning by drawing on personal experience informed by my relationship with nature.
With a graphic design skillset as my central focus, I enjoy extending this knowledge in to other disciplines and seeing where this experimentation takes me. Through previous work I have crossed in to photography, performance, installation, graphic manipulation, moving image and generative art all with varied visual outcomes. The observation of human activity, desire, and psychological phenomena are central concepts in my self-directed work. I am happiest experimenting between concept and communication to provoke thought and inner feeling from the viewer.
Graphic Design
IIllustrationamanIllustrator
‘The Infinite Art’ discusses how China’s high-pressure exam-oriented art education has affected students’ creativity based on a documentary. Every year, hundreds of thousands of candidates in China choose to enter universities by taking art exams. Why has this education model not produced many high-quality artistic talents for China? I designed this book using exaggerated text layout and image processing to present and reflect on this phenomenon.
Graphic Design
Working as a graphic designer, I like to explore and experiment with combinations of text and image to apply to a range of visual outcomes. First hand interviews are central to my practice as I often approach emotion, the subtleties in life, and the connection between society and the individual as a basis for self-motivated project work. These connections can only be thoroughly explored through the discussion with other people, and create a strong basis for thought provoking yet sympathetic visual solutions.
I have then transformed these textual notions of “security” into visual images. I hope to inspire people to think about how they can get enough security from themselves, others or from further external factors.
↘ EmeraldXue@163.com ↘ @emerald_xyr
↘ 237539204@qq.com ↘ @anchoxii_
Security can emerge from many places — a parents’ affection, a lovers’ company, even material objects — and it comes from both external and internal sources. No one can live in an absolutely “safe” environment and no relationship can be absolutely “secure”. Through this project, I wanted to collect people’s definitions of security in society, consider personal emotional experiences, and the individual need for spiritual security.
Yiru ChensiXueYan
Graphic Design
I am a young graphic designer from China. During graduate studies devoted to exploring the fields of graphic production and typesetting, I also had experience in digital media art before coming to GSA. My creative theme mainly comes from life, and I often pay attention to what happens in daily life and social conflicts. Graphic design is a medium of information transmission, my creative purpose is to connect art and life, and art and life complement each other.
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↘ tyoubie@foxmail.com ↘ @B___i___e
My project explores mental health, sharing personal experiences of anxiety and stress.I look to communicate my personal experiences in a relatable way that will connect with others. The project looks at triggers and coping mechanisms to deal with mental health issues.
↘ zyuan.co.uk ↘ zyuan1015@163.com ↘ @77yuan_ IPhotographyamaphotographer with a background in fashion design. My photographic work is primarily still life photography, using metaphorical images I explore themes associated with gender, identity, the body, materiality and aesthetics.
MyIllustrationworkexplores
the mundane details of everyday life, exploring communication through an emotional engagement with the viewer. My practice is based on observational drawing using both digital and traditional media.
There is an old Buddhist proverb which describes hair as ‘three thousand troubles’. It is said that three thousand represents the uncountable, which means that endless worries are the same as endless hair and this is why Buddhists shave their heads when they become monks, as cutting off their hair is to cut off all their worries so that they can become Buddhas.
17 MDES GRAPHICS/ILLUSTRATION/PHOTOGRAPHY
This current body of photographic work focuses on issues associated with female identity, which utilizes hair as both a symbol and a material. I use hair in my images to represent the worries and fears that I and perhaps other women experience.
Ziqi MeihuiYuanZhang
‘The Sweet Doll’ project is a short animation exploring gender roles and the societal expectations of young females in China. These societal norms currently objectify women. In China, women are often described as ‘vases’, meaning a ‘beautiful ornament’.
AsIllustrationanillustrator and animator, my practice responds to my observations of the world around me. Observational drawing is at the heart of my practice allowing me to explore the world and my inner self.
↘ qingzhang.co.uk ↘ Qingzhang2019@163.com ↘ @zhangqing8026
HangqiuZhangZhou
↘ 15868322066@163.com ↘ @hqiuuu Qing
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I am a graphic designer working predominantly across brand identity, publication and typographic design, and an exploration of developed visual languages. Graphic design is a way for me to communicate and express individuality through graphics, colour, and typography to resonate with viewers and convey ideas. I strive to find a balance between art and commerce, to produce surprises from logic, and to translate intuition and creativity into unexpected possibilities. This self-directed brief is based on the theme of ‘hair freedom,’ in which I wanted to develop the brand identity for an innovative hair salon. The project was born out of my own experience of growing up with hair that, for the most part, I could not decide for myself. Hair may seem part of our body, but it is often limited in every way, whether by family, school, or social and cultural factors, and we usually cannot change our hair as we wish. Through this project, I want to explore the relationship between hair and people and use unique visual language to express the freedom and form of hair.
Graphic Design
19 MDES GRAPHICS/ILLUSTRATION/PHOTOGRAPHY NotPhotographyverylong
ago, I was a science student. The reason I turned to study photography is that I think photography gives me a tool to observe and record the world around me, and a platform to express my thoughts. When engaging with photography, I adhere to a principle that an individual is as insignificant as a drop of water in the sea, so I seldom focus on myself, but try to take a universal, objective perspective to think and reveal issues. The latest practice concentrates on depicting the barriers in our civilization, and I chose the division between ethnic groups, religions, and regions in the United Kingdom as the introduction to this problem.
The fallout from Brexit, which has undermined the devolution settlement and potentially destabilizes peace in Northern Ireland, the devolved Scottish government seeking a new referendum for independence, together with an increasing number of disaffected Welsh voters looking to support independence too, the UK’s future, for an outsider like me, looks to be in serious jeopardy. Or is this state of flux and internal conflict, as history might suggest, the norm for these Isles?
My project consists of a series of landscape photographs that explore four contemporary, historical or geographical barriers in the United Kingdom, Hadrian’s Wall in The North of England, The Peace Walls in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Offa’s Dyke in Wales and The English Channel/ Cliffs of Dover. Together my photographs represent and symbolize both the current and historical disunity that exists throughout the British Isles.
↘ Wenyuan.gawain@gmail.com ↘ @gawain.gao Wenyuan Gao
All work shown remains the property of the designers and may not be reproduced in print or any other media without written permissions. Contact details for all work is provided on each page for any enquiries.
Cover image: Wenyuan Gao Photography: McAteer photography: Shannon Tofts Kat Loudon and Phoebe Willison is Triptych by The Pyte Foundry. Printed by The Newspaper Club on 55gsm improved newsprint.
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The School of Design would like to acknowledge the contributions of postgraduate Core Research Methods and Elective course staff, the administration team, and GSA’s technical support staff who have all helped enrich the graduating students experience.
