Our most recent first year project was image, taking a theme - high & low for example - and bringing the two opposing ideas together in one composition. The brief is straightforward, but this is a project which requires depth of thought, research and craft. Being a hard brief (this is a regularly used technique, so to be original requires digging deep), many were of a good standard, but only a handful truly surprising.
Inspired by the Reverend’s good book, this year’s typography brief took the raw materials of letters, numbers and glyphs; and asked the students to create faces and animals from them. The premise of the project was to instil the notion that through taking a seemingly everyday object and looking at it with fresh eyes, you can create a completely new idea. This is a fundamental lesson in lateral thinking, and a primer in the ‘art of looking sideways’.
Here we share some examples of the first Year 1 creative thinking project – research. This year marked a return to the physical. So the potential for exploiting the space and format available were far beyond the perceived restrictions of the digital realm.
The above example takes the word house, and through research exploited various definitions of the word. A doll’s house opened up, the archetypal version of ‘The House at Pooh Corner’ featured an opening cover, and the representation of a full house in poker was set on real gaming cloth. With the research topic clearly being communicated as the given word, staff were also encouraged by the crop of a light house, as a visual reward for the canny viewer.
The above was a response to the word language, and the below to paper. Though less physical, the interpretations for language were deemed to be the most cohesive suite within the crit.
For the following example, there was visual interest in the gift wrap, the actual origami and shredded paper.
A further two good examples below for the words table and bear. Staff highlighted both of these responses due to their graphic nature; particularly the gingham and timetable on the first image; and the road sign and the flag on the second.
Brand, packaging and campaign concept for otherwise unsaleable fruit, by Rob Barton.
Sisterhood is an app concept to create a network for solo female travellers, by Darcy Tromp.
Brand and campaign concept for an at-home smear test, by Sarah Gregory.
Rebrand AIVA to bring a new audience to AI music, by Joe Lawrenson-Leeney.
Campaign concept for Patch plants by Sara Esat.
In-app brand experience concept by Dom Dzik.
Campaign concept by Lawrenson-Leeney.
The Disciples Of Design are a global collective of design academics, practitioners, artists and students. We have one common thread – UCLan in Preston, UK; and one common aim – the creation of an ever evolving visual hub for the sharing of ideas and thoughts.