It’s that time of year again – the sun is out (kind of), the University year is over and the new grads are looking for jobs. The first stop? New Blood, of course! I have been excited about going to New Blood since this time last year – I just love everything about it!
This year, I went with my girls Emma, Amber and Lucy (the orange arm owner!) and we stayed in London for a couple of days.
It was in a different location to last year and bit cramped too as it was basically a pop up exhibition inside the Old Spitalfields Market. It was a bit disappointing because it meant that it was really busy and there was not really any space to stand back and look at the work. I kind of felt under pressure to move quickly from stand to stand so that I wasn’t in the way of everyone else – there was a lot of elbow touching! But anyway, what it lacked in space, it made up for in work:
I saw a lot of work which I recognised from Behance and competitions including the above entry for YCN’s Fedrigoni brief by Jonathan Shackleton. I was really surprised to not find it on the finalist list – It was a winner in my eyes!
A curious response to the 4’33″ istd brief by Megan Brooks of University College Falmouth:
See it in action here. Another great piece of work from the istd briefs – this time The Waitress by Jack Bardwell:
…simple and sophisticated!
Also found some great Penguin Book Award covers, including a shortlisted entry (far right) from Matthew Hall.
Staffordshire University’s stand grabbed a lot of attention thanks to Rebecca Clemson’s beautiful paper craft work:
and Melanie Milne’s typographic picnic set reminded me of the comedy carpet:
Yan-Jung Hsu of Edinburgh College of Art (PostGrad) had some interesting business cards – tracing paper laminated!? Caught my eye anyway…
… which leads on to interesting work by Yu-chiao Huang (also PostGrad of ECA). ‘Journey in Progress’ had interesting typographic experimentation:
Beautiful and striking wooden blocks by Kudzai Dyirakumunda of AUCB:
My images don’t do them justice so make sure you have a proper look here!
Familiar faces at the Lincoln stand:
Alice Hines, Sam Hartill, Danielle Smith, Rachel Carter & Amy Barden. Notice the lovely yellow arrow pointing towards the name? University of Lincoln were awarded a Best in New Blood award again this year:
Well done Luke Turner!
Next door, at University of the West of England stand there were lots of nice things to look at:
Then, something caught my eye across the corridor:
Fresh Meat – where have I seen that before recently? Reminded me of my Limited Edition posters immediately!
Southampton Solent definitely won the prize for best free stuff (all will be revealed in next blog post)!
I hadn’t really heard a lot about DJCAD (University of Dundee) before last year, but they produce some great work! Really loved Kyle McPartlin‘s style…
… lots of clever layering to create interesting compositions and it was quite refreshing to see something just simply b&w too!
Kirsty Turpie‘s response to The Waitress (istd) left Lucy & I green with envy…
…and I was really not surprised it was awarded Best in New Blood – stunning work!
As always, the NUCA stand was jam packed with excellent work:
One piece that caught Emma’s (and my) eye was this innovative book/coffee cup design by Kerrie Scott.
We also loved Kerrie’s istd response to ‘The Waitress’:
I think this one was my favourite of ‘The Waitress’ work that we saw whilst at New Blood – wish I had done it!
I absolutely love the house illustrations and the menu style index:
Great typographic detailing!
Alison Bell of Gray’s Art School produced a beautiful 3D piece for the YCN Triumph brief:
From Nottingham Trent, Jessica Phillips‘ typeface ‘Bimbimbap’ influenced by her time in South Korea:
and Ruth Wood‘s interactive poster was intriguing:
and lastly from Nottingham Trent, something you might recognise:
I featured Lun Yau’s Fedrigoni work in Triangle Friday #1 – check it out here.
Spotted this banner by Heleliis Tume (Cardiff School of Art & Design) as part of her ‘Thifty Designer challenge’…
… sounds right up my street!
And finally, just finishing on some interesting publications from Bath Spa University:
Above right – Rosie Cullen‘s National Trust work looked great.
And breathe… I definitely got to see a lot more work this year! Sorry if I have got anything wrong name/university/website wise. If I have, let me know and I will correct it.
I had a great time again and picked up a lot of good free things which I’m going to do a separate post about. It’s so scary to think that the next New Blood I go to I will be seeing the work of all my competition because I will be going into the big scary world! My fingers are crossed SO tightly that I will be lucky enough to exhibit at New Blood, but I know I will go and visit anyway even if I don’t get chosen for Lincoln’s stand!
Oh and I mentioned the last time I was in London the Troika V&A sign was broken, however:
Ben informed me it was up and running again and he was right =a happy Tasha!
As I mentioned in my previous post, we had booked in for the Design Bridge talk at 3pm. We didn’t find the Old Truman Brewery until about half 1, then after registering we didn’t really have that long to look around. There was so much great stuff to see!
