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Welcome Guide 2014

BA (Hons) Graphic Design:Visual Communication

ContentsWelcome from your Course Leader 3

Reading list 4

Course costs 5 5

Course contacts 6

Summer project 7

Pre-arrival 9

Student checklist 13

Front cover image: Ashley Greaves

www.ucreative.ac.uk2

From your Course Leader

Dear student,

We are very pleased that you have decided to study at UCA Canterbury, and welcome you to BA (Hons) Graphic Design: Visual Communication.

In this pack you will find all the information you need to help you settle into your studies this September. We are confident you will have a challenging and rewarding experience on this course, making new friends, enjoying new experiences and acquiring new skills.

We’ve enclosed a summer project brief for you to complete and a list of materials you will find useful for work on the course. We’ve also given you a list of interesting reading material: don’t feel you have to rush out and buy them all - just have a look at as many as you can. Visual Communication students will benefit from numerous resources such as first class printmaking studio, digital printing area, media stores, Mac digital suites, 3-D studio and bookmaking/arts.

The first year of the course will be an introduction to the essential skills and knowledge needed to establish your practice. You will experience a range of methods and techniques, undertake an exploration of process and materials across

different media, cover studio methodologies and skills development, and study history of art, communications culture and theory.

I wish you all the best for the summer break and I look forward to welcoming you in September.

Best regards

Hugh Harwood Course Leader, BA (Hons) Graphic Design: Visual Communication


Reading list Many of these boks will also apply to your first project, so will help you to prepare for it:

Crow, David, (2010), Visible Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics in the Visual Arts, Worthing, Sussex, AVA Publishing

Heller, Steven, Vienne, Veronique eds. (2012), 100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design, London, Laurence King

Heller, Steven, (2010), Graphic: Inside the Sketchbooks of the World’s Great Graphic Designers, London, Thames and Hudson

Lupton, Ellen, Cole Phillips, (2008), Graphic Design: The New Basics, New York, Princeton Architectural Press

Fletcher, Alan, (2001), The Art of Looking Sideways, London, Phaidon Press

Ingledew, John, (2011), The A - Z of Visual Ideas: How to Solve any Creative Brief, London, Laurence King

Meggs, Philip B., Purvis, Alston W., (2011), Meggʼs History of Graphic Design, Hoboken, NJ, John Wiley & Sons


Megan Stephania Jones

Course costs www.ucreative.ac.uk5Course costs for 2013/14 (excluding tuition fees)

If you are liable for tuition and registration fees these will need to be paid separately. There will be some costs incurred during the course. The course will pay for materials used during inductions, specifically during printmaking inductions.

Once printmaking inductions are over, you will have to pay for printmaking materials such as screens, plates, paper, etc. Professional quality digital printing (A4 up to large format A0+ sizes) is available through our print bureau at very reduced prices from those available commercially. You are not required to own your own computer for this course as we have access to extensive Mac suites.

Course visits:

In the past, this course has made overseas trips in the second year of their studies – these will be planned in consultation with students, who will be asked pay for these visits themselves. We will also offer one day field trips within the UK for which students will be asked to make a small contribution towards the cost. The field trip during induction week will be free of charge although you will need some cash for lunches etc.

Soumbul Qureshi

www.ucreative.ac.uk6 Course contact details

Clarissa Bowman

Hugh Harwood: [email protected]

First year tutor: Silke Dettmers: [email protected]

Course Administrator: Judi Batten: [email protected]

Conor Hudson

Summer Project Brief:

We want the start of your First Year to be energized and exciting. This is why we ask all our new students to introduce themselves with a piece of work.

A Ball of String

This is your starting point - a ball of string; we intend for this to act as a springboard for your imagination. We encourage you to travel far and wide with this subject, after some time of play and experimentation to arrive at a personal view/interpretation.

There are very few limitations, so let your creativity run wild. You may choose to produce a short film, set of photographs, series of drawings, a book, or even an installation. Your outcome could be polemical, poetic, informative, educational or surreal.

In terms of character, what you produce can be polemical or poetic, informative, educational or surreal… Developing a diverse and rich research

process is really important for us at UCA. Please make sure that you document your journey through this project in a sketchbook/ notebook or blog.

Your research should comprise of primary and secondary sources and should be as visual as possible. By primary we mean still or moving, analogue or digital images/texts/sounds that you generate yourself through sketching/filming/ photographing/collaging/printing/constructing. Secondary research concerns work created by other artists and designers, which you discover in books, exhibitions or online. Note down relevant names and dates of the materials you research at all times. Dare to analyze, criticise and comment.

www.ucreative.ac.uk7 Summer project

If you are still stuck for ideas, maybe seek out word connections with ‘string’. Look at proverbs, sayings; any famous headlines or straplines, song titles referring to the word in the widest sense E.g. “to control the purse strings”, “no strings attached”, “cutting one’s ties” etc. There may be stories out there to illustrate too, such as the famous Greek myth of Ariadne, Theseus and that ball of string.

If you take our encouragement to play and experiment seriously it could just be that at the end of your creative journey the link with the original ball of string has become quite tenuous. For us that is fine! Lateral thinking is encouraged - as long as you can demonstrate through your sketchbook work how you arrived where you did.

As your future course is a course concerned with visual communication it would be good if what you are developing has an idea behind it and is not just decorative.

Having said that we of course want your work to be attractive to look at and for you to take care over its production. So, however lateral or expressive your work will be, make sure others want to engage with it and can make sense of it! We believe that communication can be direct and clear, or suggestive and indirect. If your artwork is ambiguous it should be deliberately so, maybe to evoke an emotional response or provoke action.

If your idea is too large and or expensive to execute, you can present your concept in the form of a visual proposal.

Chiharu Shiota ‘For in Silence’, 2007

We will be viewing and discussing this summer project in your first week.

Remember to keep it simple but rich and most importantly: ENJOY doing this project!

www.ucreative.ac.uk8 Summer project

www.ucreative.ac.uk9 Pre-arrival

Take some time to look at the following publications:

Media:

Fused Magazine http://www.fusedmagazine.co.uk

Type Radio – a series of great podcasts on typography http://www.typeradio.org

Creative Review http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog

Design Observer http://designobserver.com

Influential design group Pentagram’s new work blog http://new.pentagram.com

Graphic Birdwatching http://www.graphicbirdwatching.com

Social design notes http://backspace.com/notes

The Guardian’s art and design pages http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign

Unit Editions http://www.uniteditions.com

Apps –(search on iTunes for these interesting apps.)

Meggs History of Graphic Design

Interaction of colour by Josef Albers

Summer exhibitions

Below is a list of some activities that you may want to explore over the summer bfore starting your studies in September:

Le Havre ‘sense of place exhibition’

Brewery Tap Gallery 53 Tontine Street Folkestone, Kent CT20 1JR.

Friday 5th September to Wednesday 10th September.

An exhibition of work by students and staff from Graphic Design: Visual Communication, alongside staff and students from ESADHaR college for Fine Arts in Le Havre, collaborate in exploring notions of place


Zoe Sudds

Fine Art

Matisse’s cut-outs. Once in a lifetime! Take a student ID to get in cheaper. This show is very popular, do look at the Tate website to find best times to visit.

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/henri-matisse-cut-outs

Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs Tate Modern 17 April – 7 September 2014

Adult £18 (without donation £16.30); Concession £16 (without donation £14.50)

Film

This for all of you who have recently discovered their love and talent for moving image!

One of the most influential film makers of the middle of the 20th century. Chris Marker: A Grin Without a Cat

Whitechapel Gallery

http://www.whitechapelgallery.the Sidewalk to the Catwalk From 9 April 2014 - 25 August 2014

Installation

Phyllida Barlow Tate Britain until 19 October 2014

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/tate-britain-commission-2014-phyllida-barlow


Mondrian and Colour 24 May 2014 - 21 September 2014

http://www.turnercontemporary.org/exhibitions/mondrian-and-colour

Mondrian is a great artist to study when trying to understand the tricky issueof ‘abstraction’. “In the landscapes he created shortly after 1900, Mondrian painted the rays of the sunand the glow of the moon in order to make a new statement about colour. He was no longer interested in capturing fleeting external reality in the Impressionist sense; instead, his goal was to express spirituality in painting and return it to its essential nature. In 1921, Mondrian decided to paint only in primary colours in addition to white and black.”

Folkstone Triennale 30 August – 2 November 2014

Located in the seaside town of Folkestone on the south-east coast of England, artistsare invited to use the town as their ‘canvas’, utilising public spaces to create striking new pieces that reflect issues affecting both the town and the wider world.

Artists commissioned to take part in previous triennials include Cornelia Parker, Tracey Emin,Jeremy Deller and Martin Cree.

De La Warr Pavillion, Bexhill on Sea Sat 17 May 2014 - Sun 27 Jul 2014 Otto Dix Der Krieg Etchings.

One of the few artists who manages to portrait the horrors of war truly. Free entry http://www.dlwp.com/event/otto-dix


Student checklist

Please use the below as a guideline:

If your offer is still conditional, email a copy of your qualifications/results to [email protected]

Apply for accommodation

Read this Welcome Guide

Complete your online enrolment

Attend your physical enrolment session (remembering to bring your original exam qualifications/results and photo ID)

Attend your induction sessions

Upload a photograph for your Student ID Card/Library Card

Pay your tuition fees and additional charges using the Online Payment facility

Once you have fully enrolled you may also want to:

Collect your Student ID Card/Library Card from the Library

Obtain a letter to open a student bank account from myRecords in myUCA

Obtain a letter for Council Tax Exemption from myRecords in myUCA

Register with a local doctor


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