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