Arty Fish & Chip Paper

You know how it is. You visit a gallery or an exhibition and the gift shop has a tremendous pull - time to look at postcards, books and stuff. After you've been culturally enriched, it's just nice to leave with a memento of your visit.

And so it was, with this year's BA Graphic Communication graduation show at Norwich University College of the Arts. Following the recent trend for design journals using a newspaper format (thank you Unit Editions) graduates had this additional platform for their work, and for visitors to enjoy as an irresistible freebie.

It did mean more work for third year student Billy Thorpe, who designed it at the Studio (with print sponsored by Archant). Everyone was pleased with the end result and Billy earned himself an internship at the Studio. Which was nice.

You may remember from the previous post that a fish tank was available to win from the graduate show at Norwich and D&AD New Blood. Interested visitors were encouraged to give their details to Andy Campbell or students on the stand. Studio can exclusively reveal that the winner was...(drum roll)... Emma Booty of Landor – a branding designer who covets supermarkets as our 'new church' and 'temples of temptation'. Congratulations Emma.

Racing Goldfish - views from the fishbowl

I'm a bit late with this blogpost, but having lost but now found my camera,  I can finally share some shots from this years BA Graphic Communication graduation show at Norwich University College of the Arts.

Throughout the past year, Course Leader Andy Campbell and I had occasionally discussed the look of the show; it was time to up-our-game and present the work differently, and create more of a gallery exhibition experience. The presentation of the third year's work drew more upon Andy's fine art background, dumping the nasty foam board and spray mount, in favour of A0 and A1 sheets each hung from the same horizon, by large silver clips.

And it was still a layout task for each student, using the larger format to display a chosen project which featured a campaign across communication media. I'm pleased to say each exhibiting graduate succeeded and met the challenge. Film and digital was also embraced, I especially liked the addition of the showreel, bringing to life each presentation.

When it came to a theme for the show, Andy had a thing about goldfish. Each student would be a numbered goldfish racing into the industry, from river to ocean I guess. For me, it was the fairground image of winning a goldfish, but instead the racing goldfish would be potentially awarded with an internship or that valuable first job.

The course's best students had another challenge of creating another show for D&AD New Blood, this year being held at the Truman Brewery at Brick Lane, London. Here, they would have wider industry exposure. In the centre of both shows, stood the goldfish bowl, which each visiting agency had the chance of winning.

The show received great feedback from industry visitors, so the hard work and presenting the work differently had certainly paid off.

A newspaper was also produced for the Racing Goldfish, designed by Billy Thorpe and put together at the Studio. More about that and the winner of the goldfish bowl in the next post.

All the best to all graduating students from Norwich University College of the Arts and big pats on backs to all the students whose hard work helped put together the show.