Homeward-Bound

So tomorrow I fly back home for Christmas, I'm very excited to see my family especially from being ill for the last couple of months. I have decided to rest completely whilst home until I  have visited my GP and made a full recovery. This will allow me to concentrate on my work completely and put all my effort and energy into my work ready for my return in January.

The main project I will need to complete over the break is my magazine and  begin my booklet for my History class. I started researching for my booklet in the beginning stages of the project so this will help me alot over Christmas with how far behind I feel. Hopefully in a week or two I will be back on track and making vast progress in my work. I can say however on a positive note that my postcard project is completed and I am really happy with my work I have produced. I will blog about my work and the project soon.

NAP x

Cyprus Family Christmas

Whilst I have been ill my group of friends arranged a weekend away in the mountains for us to spend time together before our deadlines and the break for Christmas. We rented cars and a private villa for the weekend and headed to a small village just past Paphos. This was for us all to spend some time all together as when we return after Christmas only 6 of us out of 10 will be staying the full year. We visited the historic tourist site, Baths of Aphrodite, where it is believed the goddess of love and beauty used to bathe in a the small pool of the natural grotto. We also went on a little nature trail to see the full views across the bays and the landscape around us.

We also held our own Christmas day here with secret Santa, a quiz and a lovely Christmas dinner cooked by the boys with personal Christmas crackers for each of us. We also set up a photo booth with props we made out of card. It was a great way for us all to have a break away from work for a day.

I am still recovering and resting from being ill, I have now decided to rest completely until I am back home and visited my own GP. I will then continue with my work over the break for my return in January.

NAP x

Missing the NHS

Unfortunately I have been very unwell lately and my work has suffered because of this. Most of my time has been spent resting or traveling to see the doctor and visiting the hospital for further diagnosis and scans. This has also drained my energy and been quite expensive for me. The experience of visiting the doctors here has made me really appreciate our healthcare in the UK.

Through out being ill, I have notified my tutors of my circumstances and how it is affecting my work and they have been very understanding. I have been to talk briefly with them before I return home for Christmas with the current stages of my work and to arrange a plan of action with them. I have currently finished around 10 of my final 12 postcards needed and will be giving over 5 of my favourites to my tutor for production before I leave for Christmas. With my magazine I have around 10 of the final 24 required spreads and have arranged with both tutors to try my hardest to catch up with work over the break. I will also need to make a start on my conceptual booklet required for my history module, with some knowledge in the era I have chosen I will only need some brief research on what I will want to include in my book. I plan to have most of my work completed ready for my return in the new year and talk through with tutors to make any changes then.

NAP x

Troodos Mountains

At the weekend I attended a trip run by the Erasmus group here in Nicosia for all Erasmus students.  We took a coach to the Troodos mountains, a 3 hour drive to spend the weekend there. Within the mountains were little villages that we got to explore for ourselves with plenty of organised visits to some traditional houses for us too. We began our trip by arriving at a sweet factory to see how traditional Cypriot sweets are made and the full process of how they are produced. We then visited a rose house which the village was most well know for, unfortunately most roses had been picked by this point and were no longer able to see in the fields. We ventured to another little village further along the road, famous for its bread, and visited a nearby church and artefacts room, it was fascinating to me to see the culture and history of the religion in Cyprus. Further into our incline of the mountain range we came by the side of a remote waterfall, I found the scenery stunning and a perfect autumnal atmosphere surrounded us.

Once we reached our accommodation we all invited for a traditional Greek meze feast, I unfortunately wasn't feeling very well and had to miss out on the night ahead. The next day we had the pleasure of meeting a chocolatier based within Troodos who specialises in a certain brand of chocolate. We were handed plenty of samples and giving a brief history talk on chocolate and the process taken to make it.

Overall the trip was full of plenty to see and do, unfortunately due to me feeling unwell, I couldn't enjoy it as much as I would have like to. I would love to return to the mountains and see them in a different season as a contrast to the amazing autumn scenes I saw this weekend.

NAP x

History Brief Revealed

Our brief was finally given to us this week for my History module, I am required to produce a booklet with a minimum of 20 double page spreads on a given design era. We have been given a week to choose from a list of eras in this brief, however I have already made my decision to create my booklet on Art Deco. I have started my research briefly as I am starting to feel unwell and will hopefully soon be able to pick up when I'm feeling better.

Hercules & Eris

Meet the newest and littlest members of our family here in Cyprus, rescued from the horrendous storms we've been experiencing lately. I've decided to name them both after a Greek god and goddess with some help and history from my Greek classmates.

NAP x

Mid Terms

In my previous post I explained about my contribution with a new friend I made here and his Photography work. He showed me some of his final photos he is planning on using from both shoots and also mentioned that he will be entering them into an exhibition soon.

This week was our midterm critic's is class for the progress of our work in all projects. I began the week discussing my magazine spreads I had been working on and how I had interpreted the articles I found. It was great to see everyone's concept for their magazine and a variety of styles and the dynamic in the class of peoples way of presenting and talking about their work. This month I have been working on the logo development, typography choices, cover and some very early spread designs and grid layouts to experiment with the concept and identity of my magazine. I have also really enjoyed my design for production module and how my work is coming along in this class too. I have many ideas and concepts for each of my 12 needed postcards and will be putting them all into a digital format to work on them as a group.

This week I also had an exam on my Greek language and all that I had learnt from the previous weeks. My friend Vasilis had been helping me revise and setting my tasks to learn in preparation for my exam so I felt confident. I am really enjoying learning the language and feel I know a lot from my classes, mixing with the Greek classmates and trying to speak the language to people around me.

NAP x

Gallery visit

This month I decided to visit back home and the contrast was unbelievable, the weather, people, university life. Traveling and only a month into life here has given me a new outlook on work and living. Taking my first flights alone was scary at first but now I have so much confidence in traveling alone and feel that this feeling will benefit my job prospects when returning to the UK. Hopefully my employers will consider myself for exciting projects involving travel from the experience I have gained this year, another advantage will be when it comes to interviews as I will always have something to talk about in depth from my CV. Whilst I was away I was able to make a start with my projects, I had already researched into possible ideas ahead of my journey so that I could sketch in my books whilst traveling.

On my return to Cyprus our history class had arranged a trip to an art gallery to replace our usual lecture that week. It was a great chance for me to visit somewhere new in the city, see the artwork displayed and become introduced to most of our classmates. We all headed further into town for coffee after, to talk and get to know them more and answer their many questions about our travels, plans, life, university in Coventry etc.

I kept my promise to Vasilis our Greek classmate when I promised to model for his work. We drove out to a park for his Alice in Wonderland themed shoot where a costumes was given and hair and make up done by himself for his vision of the what he wanted and needed. There were also some girls from our class shooting for the same class and it was great to get to know them a little better. He was very happy with how his photos came out and has now asked me for another photo shoot in a studio located in another building of the university, this will give me the chance to see other facilities if I may need them. I invited them all to join us for a night out so they could get to know us all and we could get to know them more and learn more about their life at university.

NAP x

Briefs

For each of my design modules chosen, I have a brief to complete, to produce a printed artefact from research and experimentation taking into considerations of each brief. As I mentioned in my last post, I have elected to take Design for Production, Design for Publishing, Advanced Typography, History of Graphic Design and Greek Language. Since then I have dropped a module due to the heavy work load from my other classes and decided to carry on with the modules which will help me develop my portfolio. I chose to drop Advanced Typography as the other modules seemed to excite me more and I felt I could learn and benefit a lot more from the other classes.

For my publishing brief I am required to produce a full magazine with 24 double page spreads including the cover and back cover. I feel this will be a great addition to my portfolio and I will learn a lot from the module to benefit my skills and knowledge. In production my task is to compile a set of 12 postcards based upon 12 quotes we have been given to illustrate and represent for each of the postcards. The is a restriction on imagery for this brief and photography will not be allowed unless it is of a patter or abstract imagery so the quote will be the main focus. Our tutor would like us to have the quote as the main focus and for us to experiment with a mix of typography and concepts. I have previously been thinking of creating a postcard for each place I have visited from my traveling this year, so this project is very appealing to me in practice for my long running personal project. My final design module is exploring the history of graphic design, we will be given lectures on various different design eras. Our tutor is retaining the brief for now as he wants us to focus on just learning for the majority of the semester. Once our brief has been announced I will then post a small update.

NAP x

First month in Cyprus

In our first month of moving here and starting our classes, in just a total of two weeks, my experience here has began full of promise. We moved into our new apartment which is only a two minute walk from campus and relatively an O.K place to live for the next year here. Our landlord was very welcoming and with a shop just below and a maintenance man around the building, the people we have met so far seem very helpful and accommodating by speaking English for us.We have met up with some other students from Coventry university also studying in Nicosia, part of the Erasmus program and all get on well, I feel this year will be a great experience as all of us what to take as much as we can back to Coventry with us.

My first priority was to officially register and choose the subjects I will be studying for the first semester. With my learning agreement, arrival form signed and a brief welcome talk of what modules are available to me, I have now enrolled onto Advanced Typography, History of Graphic Design, Design for Production, Design for Publishing and as an added extra subject Greek Language. I'm looking forward to the outcome of my work from reading the briefs and talking to tutors and being apart of the classes. I will also be in the same classes as some of my friends from Coventry and new friends, from Scotland, I met online through the Erasmus group. As a group we have really integrated well with some of our Greek classmates and even had some Greek lessons from them to try and help us. A very friendly member of the class has asked if I would model for him to help with his photography class.

I'm just beginning my projects and the workload is already quite a lot however we have the option to swap and drop modules still in the coming weeks. From my first few lessons I have really enjoyed the classes and feel excited with the work ahead, such as producing a full magazine. I think it is going to be a challenging task ahead but I'm excited at the thought of what I will achieve for my portfolio. I will need to consider the workload and how to manage my time to produce the work as I have been planning on returning to the UK soon to retrieve a new travel card and visit friends from the course I left this year.

NAP x

Not long now...

In a short number of days I will finally be turning my world around to study in Cyprus. A mix of emotions are hitting me, mostly excitement and nervous at the thought of moving and being part of a new university and new classes. Integrating into new classes with foreign people is what i think I may find the most challenging, however from my past experience in China and Istanbul I feel like I can confidently overcome some of my fears.

In my planning for this experience I mentioned what I hope to gain from it in some previous posts 

(A year of travel ahead & Erasmus). These previous thoughts will remain with me and be my main aims for the year ahead. My flight will be leaving on the 17th so I aim to post an update when settled.

NAP x

Istanbul

As I mentioned before in my blog post Lingue Mundi, I have been learning the Turkish language, in preparation for my Erasmus travels. On completion of the course, a trip to Istanbul was arranged to allow us to test out our new language and skills in communicating. It gave us the chance to experience the culture, religion and food in the heart of Turkey, meeting students from the university there being our guides we were to experience local life too. The trip was fascinating and a great way to bond with everyone from our class more, I felt lucky to have such a fun trip and see so much.

  

Our day of cycling round Princes Island

 

Inside the Blue Mosque 

NAP x

Cyprus here I come...

Today I finally received my acceptance letter for Frederick University in Nicosia, Cyprus. Apartment hunting is a go!

 

NAP x

Live Brief & Degree Show

So the time has come to end my second year here at Coventry, a week of work and presentations are finished. Recently I have been working on a live brief for a client to produce a blog style website as part of a partnership to contribute to producing a website. Our client was an artist currently studying her masters here at Coventry University and wanted to promote herself, her work and her interests in a blog style website. As I felt this an easy task to complete, I wanted to try and challenge myself so suggested a creative CV to work alongside her website when it came to promoting her as an artist.

We created the website together with contributions from our client and designed a creative CV for her to math the branding we created inspired by her own artwork.

Business Card

 CV 

This week was also the opening night of the third year graphic design final degree show and in support we all attended. We had all made some great friends in a few from the year above us from sharing the experience in China, so it felt only right to support them for the night and celebrate their hard work. It was great to see their work on display and it really sunk into myself how fast it will come around and be my turn to graduate. I am currently planning to defer my last year to take a year out studying abroad and gaining more experience and confidence in myself.

NAP x

Lingue Mundi

 

I have recently began Lingue Mundi classes in Turkish, learning the language in case it may benefit me and my studies whilst in Cyprus. As the city I shall be living in is split half Cypriot-Turkish and Half Cypriot-Greek the language will be a mix. There was no option to learn Greek here in Coventry but hopefully there will be an opportunity at the university there, or by meeting new people to pick up new language skills. 

As part of the classes there is an organized trip to Istanbul at the end of classes to visit a partnering university there and plenty of chances to put our knowledge to the test. We were told the trip would be full of activities such as sight seeing, exploring Islands all with our Turkish tour guides so we can practice our language skills. 

After visiting China and the partnering university there, I now feel a lot more confident in traveling, meeting new people and trying to speak their language. It seems I have caught the traveling bug now and I don't know when it will end! This year is shaping up to be a very promising year of experience for me. 

NAP x

#ChinainCov

So it was our chance to host our Chinese friends these past two weeks and help them experience England and all of our quirky traditions and culture differences.We had planned lots of events and where to go in advance of their visit to make the most of their time and try to show them as much as they showed us on our visit.

We had plenty of day trips to London, Oxford, Birmingham to try and show them and help them experience our English culture in all its glory, amidst our traditional April showers. We offered them a mix of traditional English foods to our take on Chinese food which wasn't received all to greatly in honesty. Throughout their stay here in Coventry we split our time once again between free time and working on an our poster project and creating an exhibition space.

Overall this whole experience has been life changing for me and my outlook in my professional and personal life. Its been a wonderful opportunity to meet so many lovely people and see a different side to our world. I high recommend every student to travel whilst they can and experience everything their university offers. My university and course has given me so much with their outlook they have on traveling to gain experience. In the years I have to come left of my course here at Coventry, I hope to return to China and take all the opportunities I can to gain some experience abroad and see the world whilst i can.

NAP x

Erasmus

This week I have been planing my departure for and arrival in Cyprus ready for my Erasmus year there studying at a partnering university in Nicosia. I will be deferring my third and final year at Coventry to pursue this experience. I have been informed that I shall be attending Frederick University in Nicosia, with some friends from my course, to study Graphic Design. 

I hope to gain some experience and new skills from learning abroad and also create some new pieces of work for portfolio. I really want to use this year to benefit my final year of studies in Coventry and hopefully use it as an advantage for future job prospects and opportunities by building upon my portfolio, skills set and contacts.

NAP x

#CovinChina

I'm back from China and jet lag free now and  I couldn't wait to share my experience with you. The past two weeks in China have opened my eyes to so much. From the different landscapes, food, culture, people and the way their live their lives has been extraordinary to see for myself and experience. 

These past 2 weeks have been full of eye opening experiences for me, from trying out new food, to learning about their culture and history. I feel like I've gained more confidence than I ever thought I would not only in myself but my work. There were a lot of presenting and talking involved in front of lots of Chinese students, their very polite manner and the fact that some didn't understand a word we were saying helped me greatly in growing. They were all so grateful to have us there and some students were quite emotional to see us and have the chance to meet us, It was a really humbling experience meeting them. 

I had the please of taking part in lectures and seminars with the Chinese students and share our work from a project we had both been given to work on and see how difference in work techniques and styles. I was also lucky enough to be part of some workshops they held for us in calligraphy and visiting artists studios. I was very fortunate to be given a painting as a gift for visiting and speaking with the artists. A group of us were invited to see another artists studio along with the Chinese students which I unbelievably was given another painting as a gift. Their gratitude and welcoming attention to all of us from their culture had us all astonished and we all felt very overwhelmed towards the end of our experience from the welcome we received during our stay. 

Whilst their to work and study we also had plenty of opportunities to have our own free time to explore Changsha. The Chinese hosts took us to places to shop, eat and enjoy some activities such as Karaoke and see some of their culture. As part of our stay our host Professor took us away for a few days to see Zhangjaijie mountains, the place where avatar was set and filmed around. It was fascinating to see such a beautiful landscape against the city we had been staying in. We learnt so much about their culture and traditions from a traditional performance of dances and songs we attended one night of our stay in the mountains. 

Some of my fellow students put together a summary video of our experience. 

  

NAP x

Coventry / Changsha

So the time has come to depart for China, tomorrow I shall be taking my first flight without the comfort of family. I'm very nervous to fly such a long way and experience the culture and difference to England, but also so excited to be taking on this once in a lifetime journey. 

Whilst in Changsha I will be using the hashtag #CovinChina over on my instagram account and a tumblr blog we have created to document our experience. Please feel free to follow our trip and my contribution to the tumblr blog. 

NAP x

Key to the door

This week was my 21st Birthday and I wanted to celebrate it in style, with my family before my departure for China and possible traveling for the year. As keep sake the women in my family and close family friends gave me this to forever remember the memories with them from my birthday celebrations.

I also had a photo booth set up with props to hand to capture some snaps. I later turned this into photo strips which I plan to send to people as thank you cards.

 

 

NAP x

Sky Arts Ident

My entry for the Sky Arts Ident 2014 competition.

The brief was to produce a short 20 second film to sit within their programming schedule to remind viewers which channel they are watching and give the sense of what Sky Arts stands for creatively. 

 

NAP x

IDP Architects

We were given the opportunity to work with a residential care home specializing with people suffering from dementia in Coventry and an architects design team. For this project the care home wanted to to uplift some areas for the residents with some stimulating visuals to help with their condition. There were three areas of the home to concentrate on in particular, a connecting hallway, a cafe and additionally a room where the residents will relax in and socialize with one another. 

This brief was also set as a competition so the panel (IDP architects and a member of Coventry City council representing the care home and works to care for people with dementia) were to award a group the possibility to see their ideas implemented in the residential home. 

Below our my groups ideas for each area. My first proposal was to turn the connecting corridor into an interactive street 'memory lane' with iconic and memorable artifacts from British history.  The 'corner shop' concept was to have news main articles and headlines from the 1930's to the present day as to remind the residents of days gone by. Interactive elements such as current newspapers, televisions sets and radios were to be introduced as a way for the residents to talk about their memories and share their experiences in a happy and social manner.

 

We later changed our proposal for memory lane and each had input into all elements presented.

For the cafe area we proposed the idea of creating tiles and metal signs of iconic British food brands and advertisements to display on all walls. We created some prototypes ourselves using the facilities at the university, this was a great learning experience to see the process' of our work. Below our some visuals I created for the presentation to show our idea in context.

We also created some placements and coasters using records and menu designs as the record sleeves.

As an added artifact, we decided to include a game for the residents, to help with their memory and social skills, to be placed within the living room area. I choose to redesign a pack of playing cards as many games can be played using them and residents will already know how to use them in many ways. On each playing card a familiar face will appear or event with a short caption or headline with dates. This is to help with memories and hopefully become a talking point amongst residents whilst interacting and involving with one another.

I have always loved to design interior spaces and feel this project has enabled me to think about mixing my love of interior design and graphic design.  I hope for more chances to express my skills in interior design and furnishings with my work and plan to branch out and develop my love of designing spaces.

NAP x

A year of travel ahead

Recently, I have been planning on taking an enhancement year whilst deferring my third and final year at university here in Coventry. This will allow me to gain some international experience studying or working in a placement and aid in building contacts, my portfolio work and my self-confidence.

I have officially applied for my year studying abroad and narrowed my choices down to Cyprus and (my second choice) Madrid. It has become clear that I will more than likely be studying in Cyprus therefore I feel some language skills would come in handy. As the university doesn't offer the chance to learn Greek the second option will be to learn Turkish, with classes starting this week hopefully I will be able to build upon learning the language in hopes it will come in handy whilst living in Cyprus.

Recently meetings have been arranged to talk about the China exchange trip and what we can expect and what arrangements need to be made. Some information about the trip is as follows:

Central South (CSU) Chang Sha, 2 week exchange likely to be last week of term in March and first week of Easter holiday. Taking part in lectures, seminars, exercises, activities such as exhibitions/workshops etc whilst in China, following their typical schedule, which will be in the studio everyday 8/8.30am - 7pm. Some excursions to villages, tourism sites new and old China, trips to studios, exhibitions etc. will be scheduled and published however these plans do get changed and altered. A short video was shown of a past trip filmed by a student. Here is the video part 2, which was shown to us. I have also watched part 1 and part 3 to see the whole film and trip. A blog will be set up for us to document our experiences relating to all aspects of the trip.

This year is looking like a year full of once in a lifetime travel and work opportunities for myself.

NAP x

A Hard Rain

For this project I created a book based around the title 'A Hard Rain'. I focused my 1000 word story around Storm chasers Tim and Paul Samaras and Carl Young and the final events from their last chase.

I decided to show the movement of the storm and its power by combining the typography with the ink-like stained illustrations of the tornado and rain. I kept all colour to just black and white for a very bold contrast representing the the dense clouds and dangerous sense of the events unfolding.

I stitched every page edge together to create a concertina format, so the reader may follow on to each page uninterrupted. Each page has been perforated so as the stitching is hidden, the front and back pages perforation have been purposely left to keep a sense of fragility.

 

The only requirement in the brief was an A2 piece of material must be used. To comply with the brief I used an A2 piece of white tissue paper to keep that sense of fragility representing the lives of the storm chasers. The very thin and opaque characteristic of the tissue paper also creates the sound of rain and a storm above when unwrapping the book.

 

NAP x