The BA (hons) Graphic Design programme is a current and innovative vocational course, structured to respond to the continuously changing demands of the creative industries. It is considered to be one of the most distinguished and striking in the North West by both students and professionals nationwide.

Director of the show and final year Graphic Design student, Helen Ashcroft explains: “This year the programme reaches its peak with an exhibition entitled ‘Variety Show’. A theme that encompasses the best of the traditional culture of Blackpool within a design environment. It represents who we are and makes a point that we stand out from the crowd. It is an exciting and unusual concept.”

Variety Show is set to feature award winning and inspirational work that generates conversation and excitement amongst its viewers, with the exhibition creating a forum to discuss relevant issues such as the relationship between designers and the environment, sustainability and the future of design.

Helen went on to say: “It is an opportunity to showcase the incredible emerging talent that Blackpool and Flyde has to offer and acts as a testament to the quality of the degree programme. It also generates valuable links for students with industry professionals, and a great benefit of this high profile event is that it attracts further potential students both locally and nationally.”

The BA(hons) Graphic Design Final Graduation Exhibition takes place at CUBE in Manchester and will also be going on tour to D&AD London and Blackpool School of Art and Design. 

Check back soon for further details.

The Harrington Lecture Theatre,
The Harrington Building, UCLAN /
Adelphi Street, Preston, PR1 7BE /

Speakers From 6.30pm /
Networking from 8.30pm /

Directions here
Register by emailing here

Cliched, but true: the future of our industry will be built on the passion, skill and creativity of our graduates. As part of an ongoing commitment to ensuring this responsibility is passed into safe hands The Hub and GroupHub has put together an event dedicated to the creative and design students of our region.

This special gathering will centre around Craig Oldham’s infamous 12 IN 12 presentation—a fresh, frank and funny run through of things you should/could learn in your first year as a designer. This presentation comes with a beautifully crafted pamphlet (available on request here from Craig’s site) and has gained something of cult following since Craig first delivered it at Falmouth University last year. More on 12 IN 12 here.

Whilst this event is specifically for students, it’s not exclusively for students. Anyone in our industry could benefit from the down-to-earth intelligence that Craig brings to his understanding of the design game and the gathering will also provide creative businesses with an ideal opportunity to scout for new talent.

Read on for more information on this event in Craig’s own inimitable words:

When that dreaded time of year comes around where the Universities open their gates and out pour the thousands of Design graduates looking for that elusive first job, I get a little troubled. I feel that there’s a veil of mystery (sounds like a Harry Potter prop) between the act of leaving College (or University) and landing that all important first job: and this is something I tried to correct in the production of the 12 IN 12 booklet.

12 IN 12 is an accompaniment to a lecture I gave in April to the students of University College Falmouth. When I was invited to give a talkie I didn’t want to resort to the usual ‘show and tell’ approach that I had experienced so many times during my Design education (as I feel there are more suitable people to tell the story of The Chase—my place of work—other than myself). I decided that it would be more useful to the students to speak of the things that they would really like to hear about the industry they’re entering. Thus, I gave an account of 12 things that I had learned in my first 12 months as a designer. Things that I feel I could have only learned through an active participation in the industry, and not from the outside looking in.

Not only offering advice on placements and portfolios I also raised issues about the professional practice of Designers and the industry; I touched upon the different cultures of designers: those working more rationally and logically compared to those who strive for an emotional connection between their work and the audience; how Graphic Design can be just a job, where as being a designer can be different; and the realisation that Designing can be a reasonably small part of the job.

The twelve things are:

• Understand what Graphic Design means to you.
• Be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses.
• A portfolio is for life, not just for an interview.
• Placements matter. Do them.
• The Design industry is small, everyone knows everybugger else.
• Participate with other people and share your ideas.
• Graphic Design is just a job, but being a designer is different.
• Fall off your bike. If you don’t fail then you are not trying.
• Life and work exist outside of London.
• Designing is only, about, 20% of your job.
• Have a life outside of Design.
• Work hard and be nice to people.

The 12 lessons were discussed in an open and honest, black-and-white manner to engage the students and to allow for accessibility between them and the subject. With this in mind I allowed a lot of mistakes to remain uncorrected; I wrote it in my personal, conversational tone (which, you’ll find, reads with a Yorkshire accent); and I handed them out for free.

South Meadow Lane, Preston
From 6.30pm /
Free entry, food and welcome beer /
Register here

As well as being a vehicle for driving our work to ever-greater heights, GroupHub is a vibrant creative network: a gathering of like-minded people around a shared passion; a catalyst for new collaborations, partnerships and projects.

With this in mind we’ve decided against ‘The road to Bethlehem: the role of wayfaring systems in the birth of Christ’ as a theme for our Christmas event and gone with ‘Beer, food and chatting with mates’ instead.

Yes, our Christmas special will be all about fellow feeling and getting know thy neighbour. With a warm room, festive food and more than a drop or two of Christmas spirit you’ll have the perfect opportunity to get to know your fellow GroupHubbers a little better.

Mistletoe and party games included.

Places are free, but limited, so please register here so we know how many sausage rolls to buy.

Font characters

A very special evening with international type guru, Bruno Maag. As always, places are free (how on earth do we do it!?), but are limited. We’re already receiving early registrations for this event so make sure you email our events team at events@grouphub.org Please note the new venue – more on this soon. Check out the new Continental here and read on for more on Bruno Maag.

Born in Zurich, 1962, Bruno Maag graduated from Basel School of Design, Switzerland, with a degree in Typographic Design and Visual Communications. From Basel he moved to England to work for Monotype. After a year and a half in England, Bruno transferred to Monotype Chicago where he was responsible for their custom typeface department. During this time he re-cut all of the typefaces then in use by The New Yorker magazine for use on Macintosh.

After returning to England in 1991 Bruno started Dalton Maag with Liz Dalton. His studio designed typefaces for clients like British Telecom, BMW, Hewlett Packard, and many others. Amongst some of his own designs is InterFace, a contemporary Sans.

“No one who is good just dabbles in the typographic arts. As Erik Spiekermann once said, ‘You don’t do type. You live it.’ The problem is that just ‘living type’ is not enough. Compromises and trade-offs are almost always necessary to have a rewarding career and life in type.”

“If you love letters and want to draw type, you will love all aspects of the process. Never again will you crave color or graphic design layouts. Instead you will marvel at the beauty of letter shapes. You will adore serifs and terminals, curves and straights. Type will be yours for life.”

“If you want to get rich, don’t go into type design—become a lawyer, banker or accountant. Design type because you love it.”

http://www.daltonmaag.com
http://www.daltonmaag.com/news/61.html
http://www.stepinsidedesign.com/STEPMagazine/Article/28791
http://www.tipocracia.com.br/blog/en/2008/04/22/interview-with-bruno-maag/en/
http://www.identifont.com/show?3WF
http://www.computerarts.co.uk/in_depth/features/experimental_typography
http://www.scottbillings.co.uk/?cat=25
http://www.designweek.co.uk/Articles/137502/Balancing+tricks.html

Speakers//

Prof Stuart Walker / ImaginationLancaster
Prof Rachel Cooper / ImaginationLancaster
Mark Beever / thomas.matthews
Chair: Steven Johnson / The Hub
Further speakers TBC

Never short on ambition, GroupHub’s July event will be asking, “Can design save the world?” If design is about solving client problems, then Our Future Ltd is issuing some seriously challenging briefs – mammoth projects with daunting objectives and scary deadlines.

This event will assemble a panel of creative practitioners and academics to discuss how we can use our skills, our work and our businesses to offer up some answers. We’ll be talking about the environment, ethical trading, community cohesion and world peace. And we’ll be looking for answers a little more ambitious than switching off Macs, recycling paper and changing light bulbs.

We’d very much welcome your input on this event. Please submit comments on this post to suggest further speakers/themes/questions. Places at this event are free, but strictly limited so place ensure you register by emailing our events team here.

Former creative director at The Chase and now a founding partner at Glorious Creative, Tom’s named cropped up again and again when we asked for suggestions on speakers.His mantle piece is flooded with glass/silverware and, starting his career as a signwriter on the old YTS scheme, understands the need to balance creativity with craft.

Don’t miss this opportunity to talk shop with one of the region’s most well-respected young creatives. We’ll be looking at design as problem solving, wondering why designers can’t set type any more and explaining why passion in the most important ingredient in the creativity soup.

www.gloriouscreative.co.uk/