New Blood

Over the weekend I paid a visit to New Blood to browse around the stands of the graduates from all over the country. Naturally I was most interested in Nottingham Trent, a year on from my graduation. Themed on their degree show promotion 'Best in show' their area stood out from the rest with some really fantastic work. I was also a huge fan of the work produced by the Norwich University Graphic Design students. Their stand was plastered with work filled with brilliant ideas, and understandably have won a few awards already!

Just Wed

I just wanted to say... what a magical wedding.

I have never witnessed an event so stunning, I felt very proud to be British! Kate looked beautiful in her McQueen dress and I thought their exit through the gates of Buckingham Palace in Prince Charles' Aston Martin was a really lovely touch, arranged by Prince Harry of course!

Unravel

This weekend Farnham Maltings held their annual knitting festival 'Unravel' for everything knitted - traditional/vintage/eccentric/designer/seriously weird. The event included exhibits, a 'best in show', fashion shows, talks, workshops, sellers and sheep... Since I made Loop as one of my final year projects I thought it would be worth a visit. I couldn't get over the effort put in to this event, everywhere you looked was some random knitted item, from hanging baskets and birds in the trees outside to cakes and sandwiches in the cafe. In the new designers section I was particularly impressed by the the work of textile designer Deryn Relph who's beautiful knitted lampshades illuminated the foyer. The knitted motorbike and wedding cake were just a couple of the crazy knitted items spotted around the building. I definitely came away feeling inspired to make Loop #2...

(source: Deryn Relph, Katie Corbin)

LDF

I think it is now tradition for me to visit London for the Design Festival! This year I spent the day in Shoreditch and saw Emerge at The Cube and Gastrotypographicalassemblage at the Kemistry Gallery. Read more here

Crop

Crop - 'For creatives in and around Farnham. A platform for free thinking minds to land in one room.'

This was a truely inspiring evening! An highly engaging talk from Simon Waterfall, founder of Poke and Fray, partner of Social Suicide and ex president of D&AD, was filled with anecdotes and advice about working within the design industry, at all levels (and meeting the queen!). The night also showcased the work of Alison Haigh, a graduate from Brighton university who had her award winning work on display and for sale.

Crop was organised by Bekker and Rebecca at the Mulberry. I hope there will be many more to come (and lots more of these lovely invites)

Nottinghill Carnival

August bank holiday weekend means only one thing - Nottinghill Carnival! This year I bravely went for both days and it was fully worth it for the atmosphere, colourful eye candy and jerk chicken!

111 degree show

This week all our work has been on show at our degree show in Bonington, NTU. Heres a snap of my stand!

View everyones work here

Chinese state circus

This bank holiday weekend the chinese state circus came to Nottingham, as it was only across the road I couldn't resist! It was mental, unicycle girls kicking bowls onto their heads, martial arts warriors, people swinging form the ceiling, a lady who could bend her body into all sorts of crazy positions and a man who balanced 10 tables on his head... better than Britain's got talent any day!

Apples and pears and crafty wares

This sunny saturday I had a wonder down to the Apples and pears and crafty wares Arts market. I am currently working on making a contemporary knitting magazine for my final major project and thought it would be a good opportunity to chat to some of the people who sell their art and craft products there and to see if I could find anything knitted! I spoke to a girl from Nottingham Craft Mafia and another from Curiosity Haus who have hosted the monthly event since last May. There was some really nice work for sale, I particularly liked some prints and illustrations done by two girls who study at Trent, they have set up their own business Alf. The market is a great outlet for local designers and makers to sell their stuff!

NTU GRAPHIC DESIGN DEGREE SHOW

NTU Degree Show 2010 - Viral from NTU Degree Show 2010 on Vimeo.

our viral for our degree show - made by Joe Stephenson, Toby Edwards & Luke Elliot. Excellent job i think!!

Screen Fiends a massive success!

The evening really couldn't have gone much better! All of the designs were extremely popular and people bought printed multiple t-shirts. We also had some fantastic donations for our shop, selling cards, badges, handmade jewelry, prints... And most importantly we raised looadsa money! Big thanks to Alex Fawkes for helping the committee organise the event.

Screen Fiends

Screen Fiends is an event we have organised to help fundraise for our degree show- It is all very exciting! With live silk screen printing, live illustration, music and drinks and bits and bobs for sale made by our peers we hope to make enough to fund our catalogue and promotional items which have been beautifully designed by 3 lads in our year.

London Design Festival

Yesterday I took a trip up to London to explore some of what the LDF had to offer...

We began at Trafalgar Square to see the giant chess piece, designed by Spanish artist Jaime Hayon - inspired by English Culture and London City. Then on route to the V&A we stumbled upon the Young Creative Poland exhibition and The Incidental studio where I got to chat to the team members about how they were recording peoples perceptions of LDF.

At the V&A we saw the London Posters commissioned by a number of big designers, as well as Telling Tales - an exhibition of Fantasy and Fear in Contemporary Design, and the Wallpaper* Chair Arch.

Then onto Shoreditch to see the Typographica exhibtion at the Kemistry gallery, and then to Emerge - a selection of talented graduates work. I absolutely loved the work of Richard Carey, definitely some high standards to reach next year - and had an opportunity to chat to some of the exhibitors for some hints and tips! For the exhibition they were set the same brief as the for the London Posters which I saw at the V&A - definitely an interesting comparison between them and the professions...

Visit to Purple Circle

12th June 09 (me in the flowery shirt!)

For our final project of the year we collaborated with purple circle to do the NCHA annual report brief (below) and as part of this we had the opportunity to visit them and present our final outcome. It was a really valuable experience and I received some very positive feedback. They liked the visual metaphors that I used and commented that it was a very realistic outcome in consideration of costs and suitability. I was also complemented on my typography which I found encouraging as it is something which I have become quite of conscious of this year.