EDINBURGH COLLEGE OF ART
Graphic Design : 3 year course 2006-8.
(Two year National Diploma at Cumbria Institute of the Arts )
School:
After doing Art, Psychology and Geography AS Level for one year at Appleby Grammar School. I decided it was time to scrap the Psychology and Geography which were getting in my way of Art, which was the one i wanted to follow on.
So i looked into doing a course at Cumbria Institute of the Arts. There were two courses which I could do National Diploma in art and design or Foundation in art and design.
They both were similar courses but i decided to go for the National Diploma as it was two years long as aposed to the foundation which was only one year, but it turned out that we sort of did the foundation course too:
College:
The first year i was in a class of about 20ish people, alot of these people didn't seem as interested in art as i was but it was still good to meet new people and spend all week just doing art and not having to learn about ox bo lakes all the time (geography).
The second year the national diploma students joined the foundation students for the whole year. This was the best thing that could of happened, there was 101 people all toghter and at the start no one new anyone, except us the 20ish N.D. students which was kinda good!
We all got split into smaller groups (fashion/applied arts/Vis Com/Fine art) and most of the foundation people seemed keener to learn about art.
The foundation tutors were VERY GOOD, really enthusiastic, involved, interested, knowledgeable and friendly. The foundation year (2nd year of N.D.) we when on a trip to London and one to Barcelona which i highly recommend.
I lived at home for the two years and got the train from Appleby to Carlisle everyday, was a mission getting up early in winter but i managed it! The council paid for my train and bus pass (bus from carlisle train stat. to college).
Foundation @ C.I.A. was very very good, I would do it again any day!!
University:
I visited Edinburgh College of Art, i missed the open day but just rang up n some girls took me around.
Then I applied to E.C.A. to do Graphic design, first choice route B, had the interview and got in, so:
The first year (actually the second year cos its in Scotland) i stayed in student halls called sciennes, these halls are the slightly cheaper halls but i liked it as there were more 'down to earth people' and it was very sociable. Portsburgh court is the name of the other halls (the posh ones!!).
I didn't enjoy the first year much mainly cos of a teacher being crap, after considering leaving and coming back to C.I.A. to do graphic design I decided to stay, mainly cos Edinburgh is a really great place to live and coming back to Carlisle would be like taking a step back! I had made friends in Edinburgh and didn't really want to leave just cos of a bad teacher.
The second year ( 3rd year in Scotland) i had a new teacher and things were a bit better. I lived in a flat with 4 other people who i new and it was all good.
I have one year left, which i predict will be the best year of all as its the one where we can write our own briefs and be a lot more creative. Now we have learnt all the 'boring' parts (e.g. computer software such as photoshop, illustrator and more) we can apply the skills how we want to our work and actually be creative again!
so far i have been pretty busy, and slowly more and more of my social life is being replaced with college work, it is getting hard now and we are all starting to realise how importiant it is to make the most of our little time left at college. one girl from the year above us who got a first said if you want a first you have to throw away your social life.....
I still however have hope that both can somehow happen. We have been staying in late every night at college 10-10 sort of hours but when everyones doing it together its actually ok, only thing is we need to sort out our packed lunches cos i cant keep eating pot noodles and buying lunch and dinner its expensive. i think being organised would help!
Some of the briefs we can do are: penguin book cover design, re designging packaging for homebase, typeography briefs, re inventing ping pong, designing kleenex packaging for a certian audience or market, make an advertising campaign for irn bru.....any many more.we dont do all of them we select two which suit us and work on them for about 4 weeks.
we have also been making our websites, mine is a bit rubbish at the moment but hopefully will look good by the end of the year:
aswell as just doing college work there is a massive stress of...what are we gonna do when we graduate.....i think everyone is soooo scared about what to do. some people are applying for masters courses, others trying to get artist in residents, most people are just going to wait and see, their hopes are to get offered a job at degree show and if not then they will be taking there c.v.s and portfolios to agencies in london or other cities.
for me i am unsure too, i will prob move back home for the summer and then try to move to another city, i think glasgow will be a good place to live for a while however i dont know if that will happen. i think that it is importiant not to move back home for too long as there is a risk of never leaving again. also for design and art, i think you need to be in a city which is on the ball and 'cutting edge' it is easy to loose touch of all the news and i think seeing the competition thats out there scares you into working hard.
Graphic Design:
Quite hard to describe but it is everywhere: logos, websites, adverts, identity, packaging,newspaper/Mag. layouts and posters.
There is alot of real rubbish graphic design about but the good stuff is pretty cool and it can be a good job: imagine designing your favourite bands album cover, or an advert that going to be seen by millions of people!
Here are a few standard graphic design agencies; Bigactive also Sea Design
grafik magazine is good to look at: View Grafikmagazine Site D&AD is another useful site: View Dandad Site
This course and the skills it teaches
good luck with what ever you do!!!