This programme offers creative entrepreneurship and design studies, alongside studio practice, equipping students to negotiate an enduring and sustainable career in the changing communications industries.

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The MA Graphic Design programme has a focus on problem finding and the role of investigation, creativity and imagination in the process of making communication design. The course will enhance students’ abilities to address practical, commercial and theoretical design contexts and problems.

Further information can be found by downloading the programme leaflet. Information about fees, Alumni discounts and funding can be found at http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/home/course/gradesma/

Thinking of postgraduate study and want to find out more? Contact Chris Twigg, Programme Leader – ctwigg@lincoln.ac.uk

Level 3 BA (Hons) Graphic Design students at the University of Lincoln Helen Finlinson, Danielle Cowell and James Robins have designed a destination brand identity for Market Rasen, Lincolnshire – one of the first twelve towns nationally to be chosen to rejuvenate its High Street Area, with £100,000 help from the government and Mary Portas Queen of Shops.

The Market Rasen Business Improvement Group, MR BIG, wants to put Market Rasen on the map with local, national and regional visitors –  a multifaceted communication challenge. The MR BIG team includes a number of experienced brand and communication professionals and offered the students excellent learning opportunities with the chance to work on a high profile project delivered to a commercial standard.

The brand identity is one of several projects created by University students to market and build the profile of Market Rasen, with involvement from the University of Lincoln’s Public Relations, Journalism, Creative Advertising, Graphic Design and MA Design courses.

Helen, James and Danielle describe their identity for Market Rasen which ‘draws upon the historic Georgian and Victorian heritage of the town, and shows it to be a classic, sophisticated, and respectable place to visit. We feel that the logo really captures the essence of Market Rasen and its community, which is further enhanced by the carefully crafted swash above.’

Chris Twigg, Programme Leader for Graphic Design and tutor for the brand identity project at Lincoln, said ‘James, Helen and Danielle have represented their course well and showed the mettle it takes to deliver great work on a project of this calibre. They were selected because they had a great creative idea, of course, but just as importantly they’ve developed real people skills and professionalism in the way they’ve negotiated and developed this work.’

Sara Scott, Chairperson for MR BIG commented on the Brand identity work: ‘The students have shown real commitment and polish in the way they’ve tackled the project.  Their research, pitch and the work produced has all been of an impressive standard and on a par with many commercial providers.’

Asked how their time at University has prepared them to undertake projects like this, the students commented ‘the course has taught us the real theory behind design, such as brand values, and learning that our designs need to have a reason, not to do something just because “its pretty”. Being taught to think smart, and to really understand the theory and reasoning behind what you are doing as a designer has been an essential part of our education.’

Students on the Graphic Design degree at Lincoln are regularly challenged to undertake ‘live’ project work so they can put their experience into practice – learning invaluable lessons through applied project work which gives them the highest possible chance of being employable. Asked about the difference that live project work brings, the students noticed ‘it becomes of utmost importance to manage time well and to get things exactly right – it is real work, affecting real people and is going to help the client generate ‘custom’ which adds a huge sense of importance to work. We became really involved and excited about what the town was doing, and the feeling of being passionate and a part of the project.’

‘Today’s Graphic Design students not only need to be great creative thinkers, they have to be pro-active and dynamic in the way that they find design opportunities,’ Chris said, ‘that’s why it’s great that James, Danielle and Helen have also found funding via the University Enterprise Inc scheme to help start Form and Function, their new Graphic Design business’. Asked about this, the students said ‘getting such a major client brief under our belts has given us a great platform to start building our business on. Also, we now know what clients expect from designers, but also what we can expect from a client too.’

The Market Rasen brand identity project has been underway for several months and will shortly go into full production and rollout. Asked how it felt to pitch and be selected for this project Danielle, Helen and James thought ‘it is a huge confidence boost for us, as individuals but also as a business. It made us think for the first time that we were capable of doing work to an industry-standard level.’

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Further information:

Market Rasen’s Portas Pilot Blog

Lincoln School of Art and Design blog

University of Lincoln BA (Hons) Graphic Design course

Portas Pilot campaign calls on creative minds

Student start-up business Form and Function Design

Lloyd – Food for Thought – and the bizarre eating habits of Monsieur Mangetout

Chris – Books Still? – promoting Shakespeare to a new audience

Ross – Unsung Hero – the story of the man who saved the world

Sunjay – Unsung Hero – publications based on the life story of his great grandfather

Sam – Unsung Hero – posters and publications based on his beloved mini Olive

Sara – Books Still? – a dictionary of lost words

Franz Kafka’s seminal short story Metamorphosis was the starting point for a recent project undertaken by level 3 students. Working with either the original narrative, or exploring themes within the book – ideas were wide ranging and often surprising.

Amber: A survival kit for the broken hearted (above image)

Leanne: interactive projections that explore two aspects related to body appendages – Body Integrity Identity Disorder and the story of the first hand transplant.

James: large format posters that explore body disfigurement.

Ryan: taboos within today’s society

Chris: an installation that focuses on the theme of isolation

Jamie: installation and video that visualises metamorphosis through the perception of the individual as they become entrapped within their own reality.

Sunjay: work inspired by Ian Curtis of Joy Division.

https://vimeo.com/61254858

The aim was to encourage students playfulness and the conceptual representation of abstract (non visual) influences upon visual communication. We played a variety of tracks including Jimi Hendrix, John Cage, Bo Ningen, Pink Floyd and The Ethiopians to encourage a diverse approach to mark making, composition and use of materials to capture the rhythm and tone of the music.

The second part of the assignment focused upon experimental typography using onomatopoeia words.

The initial experiments were then developed into spatial typography and teams worked together to install a supergraphic in and around the graphic design studios at Thomas Parker House.

Will we colonise space in the future?

Sam presents her project work to the class in the studio

Visual Storytelling is a kind of alchemy that – when done well – is a matter of balancing visual form with narrative structure for challenging uncertainty and complexity head on.

Teaching with Ben Willers, we have been introducing students to the problems of communicating complex information to make it engaging, accessible, and meaningful for an audience.

Students were tasked to create 4 editorial style spreads that communicate a story in a predominately visual way. The brief was to make a prediction for the future about a topic of their own interest, based on information and data that students have researched and selected.

Among the many topics students chose to investigate were: hypersonic passenger travel, limb regeneration, the future of energy consumption, catalytic clothing, the decline of world species, space tourism, global warming, designer babies, biotechnology, economic development of China and racial demographics in American politics…

Given that the students have never worked on visualising data or creating information graphics before, this project was intended as a grounding in the essential theory and practice for this area of visual communication. And, as well as designing and art directing the work, students were also the principal investigators and copywriters for their piece, so we looked closely at narrative structure, framing and basic journalistic principles.

We spent the first few sessions on visualisation ground rules and basic theory – like what and where data actually is. Then we thought about choosing graph and chart types to display complex data/information into visual forms which take advantage of the brain’s natural ability for visual perception and detecting patterns:

One of the metrics we used to assess the work was the Visualisation Wheel from Alberto Cairo, from his book The Functional Art. This way of thinking helps designers to consider how they balance many dimensions of form and function in visualisations:

Once students had learned the basics of data exploration and visualisation, they then developed their material to form a coherent story. At this time many sketches and test pieces were created and reviewed.

Of course this was a moment of trial and error, where to differing degrees we saw successful pieces that began to balance functionality with aesthetic sensibility to communicate – the ultimate goal of this project.

What follows is only a very small selection of the diverse and great work resulting from the final project day this week. We saw such a diverse and interesting range of work that it’s impossible to include it all here, so please enjoy these sample images…

Aliesha looks at the future of Africa:

Amy considers what’s involved in manned space exploration:

Becky looks at gene manipulation and designer babies:

Ben considers the ever increasing height of buildings:

Beth looks at recycling and use of natural resources:

Chloe looks into obesity, health and diet:

Dan looks into the prospect of hypersonic passenger travel:

Dan (we have 2 Dans!) looks into fuel sources and usage:

Dean was also considering energy and in particular oil:

EmJay looks into the future of BioTechnology:

Emma considers how global warming might affect the planet:

Glen also considers aspects of climate change:

Harry’s piece is about space travel:

Jack’s piece is about fuel consumption and production in the future:

James looked into suicide statistics and compared them with living conditions:

Kate created some great charts about global warming:

Laura investigated the future of robots in medicine:

Leah looked into the possibility of London being underwater in the future:

Nancy investigated racial demographics in the American political system:

Paige considered sustainable living:

Richard considered the economic power of China:

Sam looked into humanoids integrating into society:

Samantha looked into space colonisation:

Sara thinks about the true cost of plastic surgery:

Shermeen considers a future where we might move to the moon:

Stacey considers extreme and man made weather:

Susan considered the future of fashion and catalytic clothing:

Zach’s piece was about biomechanics

Thanks to all the second year graphic design students for really getting into the spirit of this visual storytelling project – Ben and I hope you go on to build on what you have learned here to create more work that challenges complexity in a creative way.

Chris.

Chris Twigg is a Senior Lecturer in Graphic Design at the University of Lincoln and a PhD student researching into visualising data at the London College of Communication

Ben Willers is a freelance Information and Data Visualisation Designer, winner of the 2011 Information Is Beautiful award.

Level 2 students were busy in the studio this week as we began the annual ISTD projects. It was back to basic paste-up techniques – so with layout pads, scalpels and glue sticks at the ready, they set about producing a range of posters in response to the theme of the circus. Using only type – the work explores the world of the performing elephants, the knife thrower, the chainsaw jugglers and more!

In teams of 6, we were tasked to create a magazine about 21st century culture. Each member had to produce their own spreads, whilst keeping a consistent style and flow through out the whole magazine as a team. We were also set the challenge to plan and shoot our own photo story around the theme of ‘Austerity Measures.’

Through sunshine (Adam Jenkins models for Team Assume)…

…and through rain (Team Divide)…

…in the studio (Stuart O’Flynn models for Team Kerplunk)…

…or on the kitchen floor – whatever it takes to get the shot! (Team era and Team Century).

Some used digital and others tried out Polariod (Team Yak):

After all of the fun, it was down to the serious nitty gritty details of design. Team Divide and Team Century check the smaller details before sending work to print, ready for crits with visiting creatives:

We were lucky enough to have crits from two former Lincoln students.

Steve Fenn:

(Team Idle and Team Century check through their pacing and flow)

and Marianne Waller:

Both creatives gave valuable advice to set us on our way to make our magazines the best they could be!

A general overview of spreads from Kerplunk magazine:

and Divide magazine:

With all the hard work done, there was just one thing left to do – bind it! Team Yak celebrate having a finished magazine:

Whilst teams era, Century, Assume and Divide are excited to finally have their professionally printed magazines in hand:

Some really excellent magazines were produced from this project and a lot of valuable lessons about team work learned. Thanks to all of the teams that contributed photos from their journey!

Tasha.

Magazine team credits:

Assume: Chris Algar, Aiden Creed, Ashley Dady, Lloyd Wyatt Shand, Harry Winfield and Becky Riley.

Century: Jack Kingham, Talveer Uppal, Tom Bishop, Ryan Vardy, Chris Jellinek and Josh Hall.

Divide: Emma Dawson, Natasha Nuttall, Amber Hadley, Lucy Perkins, Tom Matthews and Sunjay Morar.

era: Danielle Cowell, Amy Sellers, Mia Donockley, Heather Scott, Yu Dong and Alex Morell.

Idle: Sammy Charlesworth, Jake Brennan, Jenna Brightwell, Tommy Evans, Rebecca Allsopp and Rebecca Civil.

Kerplunk: Sophie Comper, Alesha Dhanjara, Katie Ulett, Holly Caldwell, Stuart Collins and Lorna Butler.

Yak: Helen Finlinson, James Robins, Jack Slater, Yasmin Willis, Jade Dowling and Laura Webster.

A workshop run by visiting lecturer Tamar MacLellan with level 2 students generated a wealth of interesting work this week. In just three hours the students adapted and remodelled paperback books  to form sculptural shapes –  some responded to the actual book title, whilst others considered form and function. The altered books are currently on show in the window at TPH.

Tom left us in 2009 and was one of that year’s featured Best Graduates in Creative Review, also winning best in category at D&AD New Blood. He went on to work at The District and then The Partners and he’s currently working freelance in London.

Tom joined our students while they are busy working on a design for Brand Identity brief. He came to talk about his experience and thoughts on design in this area.

Tom’s talk – 90% of design isn’t design – really struck a chord at this time with the students as they are beginning to design for a brand experience – that involves so much more than a logo.

Tom critiqued some existing brands and approaches whilst taking us through his own experiences on several high profile brand identity projects. Central to all of this was the way that a Brand needs to connect with people – it’s about feeling, association, promise and emotion.