CR Blog
Degree shows 2011: Central Saint Martins graphic design
Advertising, Graphic Design, Illustration, Photography
Posted by Gavin Lucas, 17 June 2011, 16:20 Permalink Comments (27)
It's that time of year when we head to the degree shows seeking fresh talent. I visited the Central Saint Martins show at Nicholls & Clarke on Shoreditch High Street yesterday to have a mooch around. Here's my pick of the work I saw...
One of the first things I saw was this huge, undeniably attention-grabbing (it's about 8 x 8 foot) image by Fran Marchesi – who is something of a hand lettering specialist.
Next I snapped Henry Griffin's football scarf project in which he used knitted blocks of colour to represent various footballing facts.
Kirsty Collar exhibited illustrations of various East London neighbourhoods. Swimming pools, alms houses, crowds of kids, drunks and ducks abound...
Love these brilliant screenprinted, monsterific club posters by Lolita Do Peso Diogo made in collaboration with Gabriel Weber.
This poster (and the alphabet shown below) shows off Fernando Rodrigues' Parallax typeface, the design of which, he says, "draws equally from tradition and innovation; it owes as much to the works of Gerard Unger, Fred Smeijers and Matthew Carter as it does to works of Christophe Plantin, FH Pierpont, JM Fleischmann, Philippe de Grandjean and Stanley Morison."
These cosmic cats by Boya Latumahina caught my eye. As did her self-promotional poster displayed below:
These two posters led me to the display of Jonathan Seary – at which I found issue one and two of a one colour newsprint publication entitled The Changing Face of the Modern Gentleman. Issue one was printed monochrome black, and issue two monochrome red. Here's a closer look:
Ji-ah Park displayed a large scale illustration of strings of hand drawn type made up from various objects. Underneath was a selection of felt tips and an invitation for visitors to the exhibition to colour in or write stuff and generally interact with the piece. jiahxpark@gmail.com
Illustrator Ellie Wintram created this series of images called The Beauty of Geometry
Jan Bielecki may be just graduating yet his work feels highly accomplished. Here is a selection of his work on display:
The above image, entitled Overprotective Parenting, was commissioned by GöteborgsPosten earlier this month.
The above illustrations are designed to encourage people to eat less meat.
Of all the photography on display, this image by Catriona Maciver (her graphic work was also great) was my favourite.
In advertising I quite liked Joanne Shum's spec ad for Parker pens (above) and also Henry Dinkel & Olga Krasanova's wall-painted Economist ad, created in response to a brief from McCAnn Erickson. "We wanted to break away from the brand's monochromatic look and elitist stereotype to try and say something different," they say. "The thought was to show people that global issues, small or large, have an effect on people and how they live their lives - hence the Economist is more about your life than you might think." To see more of the pair's work, visit trustmeimrussian.com.
Central Saint Martins graphic design degree show runs until Wednesday June 22 at Nicholls & Clarke, 3-10 Shoreditch High Street, London, E1 6PG. For more info, call 020 7514 7022/3
27 Comments
Boya Latumahina is a girl, not a he!
2011-06-17 18:02:54
Uhm, Fernando Rodrigues is a HE and Boya Latumahina is a SHE. Just saying.
2011-06-17 18:49:40
Yikes... many apologies to both. That has now been corrected
PatrickBurgoyne
2011-06-17 19:09:28
The trouble with Graphic Design seems to be that designers have taken it as far as they can for eaxmple "Jonathan Seary" has some great work but I'm not sure that its all that new.
I remember when I was at college, I saw work every bit as good/new/original as this and I didn't go to Central Saint Martins.
2011-06-18 11:02:49
I popped down yesterday as well. This is just a selection, not the best in my opinion, there's something for everyone there.
good show.
2011-06-19 11:22:43
Very nice, might stroll down to Shoreditch for a look. Can you confirm when its over please, Sunday or the 22nd?
2011-06-20 09:55:22
John - the show's on until 22nd June. More info can be found at http://showtime.arts.ac.uk/summershows
2011-06-20 11:56:32
Did someone else do a football scarf/data design project a few years back?
2011-06-20 12:10:40
modern gentleman mag - yes
everything else - no
knitted scarves to display facts, really?
2011-06-20 15:22:18
Jan Bielecki – Nice. The rest can go in the conceptual bin of pants.
2011-06-20 23:04:54
illustration illustration illustration...
where did all the graphic designers go?
2011-06-20 23:33:29
The argument that "nothing is original" is so unoriginal.
Three years of hard work is evident throughout this exhibition, everybit worth the wait. A great show.
2011-06-21 07:42:57
I've fond memories of my time at CSM, my old art college....
its not a bad set of work....
its not brilliant, but in a world dominated by mediocrity this is very good & fairly clever.
Unfortunatley its down points are that "cliches and smartarsery dont cut the mustard anymore".
2011-06-21 11:25:23
I think that if you are going to criticise any design online, especially a student degree show, you should have the url to your own work up with your post – if all this is rubbish and unoriginal (which it's not) then let's see what you can do.
2011-06-21 12:04:23
Hi
does anyone know what time the show open till today??
thanks
SL
2011-06-21 12:06:41
@Graeme
certainly very brave of you to post your url
2011-06-21 12:43:40
In my opinion the pictures that were taken don't reflect the quality of the show at all, like the words of this article, they seem to have been taken in a hurry. Please go on their website http://2011.csmgraphicdesign.com/showcase.php?pcate=0&scate= to get a real insight, especially of moving image, which didn't have the chance to have the visit of The Creative Review team.
2011-06-21 21:31:18
In my opinion the pictures that were taken don't reflect the quality of the show at all, like the words of this article, they seem to have been taken in a hurry. Please go on their website http://2011.csmgraphicdesign.com/showcase.php?pcate=0&scate= to get a real insight, especially of moving image, which didn't have the chance to have the visit of your journalist.
2011-06-22 01:08:42
@blatently/frount You would rather we just post up the degree show website, rather than actually attend the exhibition and publish nearly 30 images of work? I can assure you, with the graduate show posts each taking the best part of half a day to put together (travel to show, take notes/pictures, get back to the office, load pictures/text/web addresses), this was not done "in a hurry". Sure, it's a quick turn around to post the same day as our visit, and occasionally there might be a typo, but I think most students would enjoy seeing some of the highlights from their show on the blog. Mark Sinclair
2011-06-22 10:13:17
@markSinclair
I think most students do enjoy seeing the highlights in the blog. Especially given that you don't gain much from it yourself - it seems inevitable that you will receive a backlash of negative comments whatever you choose to show.
2011-06-22 11:28:49
CSM degree shows always blows the rest out of the water
2011-06-23 21:37:58
@ED
Clearly untrue when you look at the updates from the other degree shows...
2011-06-24 21:19:01
Classic rubbish from Central Saint Martins. Nearly every other university show this year has more to offer the design industry than this course does. Whether that's the student's fault or not is another question though.
Pat's quote sums this up perfectly: 'the conceptual bin of pants'.
Thanks to Creative Review for showing some of the work here and of other universities across the blog, it's great to have it audited both before and after a visit.
2011-06-27 15:02:27
As a current UAL student I saw all the UAL graphic design shows so far and for me this show was the worst of all. I didn't had the feeling that for a lot of csm's students their work was worth to look at... especially for the advertising section! CSM is apparently only good for fashion.
2011-06-29 02:27:57
As a Context tutor from another Uni, I was impressed by the quality of the work in Design area and a little bit in Illustration. The Advertising work was a like a really bad joke.
I was taken with the sheer volume/number of students participating in the show (close to 200 I believe). Some really thoughtful work though many traces of very traditional work as seen in other degree shows featured in the blog (wake up, graphic design tutors!).
Regarding comments above, and also on the CSM print protest, there seems to be a lot of random vitriol that spills out when it is a CSM event. Not sure where this comes from but it is about as lame as one can get.
2011-06-30 16:57:56
Dear David,
I don't think anyone is bashing CSM here... Advertising was a big joke indeed, but so was the rest of the show. I think that a "lot" of CSM's graduates have a lot of potential but you can't really see it in their work; maybe they didn't had enough guidance? A lot of the work that I saw looked unfinished/ in progress...
2011-07-01 06:22:31
Bash Bash Bash...
Let's all remember that these are graduating students who are still finding their creative feet - they deserve the encouragement and respect of the design industry - not the usual sighs of dismay...
As a visual communications student in Australia I love seeing posts like this so I can see what my student counterparts are up to in other parts of the world. There will always be a wide range of quality and professionalism on display at student shows - I only hope that professionals viewing MY graduation exhibition will approach it with the enthusiasm and good grace of the Creative Review team.
Congrats to the CSM students on their graduation.
2011-07-17 00:44:58
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