Jack Eke

Achievements: BA Top-up
Progression to: Self-Directed Brief on Speak Impediments / Placement @ MingFeng Packaging

Having lived with a life-long speech impediment Jack was inspired by the work he saw at the 4Designers conference and coached by his personal tutor to tackle a very reflective Self-Directed Project. He created a clothing brand called ‘Overt’ (being one of the symptoms of a stutter, the other being ‘covert’) with a strong message to directly address peoples’ inconsiderate behaviour towards those with a stutter. “It annoys me the way people respond to my stutter, I wanted to bring an awareness to the cause and show how people with a stutter feel.”

His is now approaching The McGuire Programme a charity who teach people to manage their speech impediment, with the intention of using his project. “They broke down my previous speech training and taught me to speak again, to control my stutter”.

Tackling the project and gaining a 1st gave Jack the confidence to pursue a placement at MingFeng Packaging in Switzerland. He had developed a packaging project through the personalisation of his studies on the Practice-Based Research Unit. During his placement he shadowed Senior Vice President Scott Birtwistle learning about packaging design, business meetings, client handling and the interview processes.

 

Design Manchester

Trip: Multiple events across Manchester
Purpose: Employer Engagement

Design Manchester is a not-for-profit organisation celebrating creativity, collaboration and inclusivity in the world’s of art, design, illustration, fashion, music, animation and photography. As part of this, student’s attended various events including:

REVOLT18 workshop with Swifty and Malcolm Garrett
University of Salford

Workshop held at University of Salford Graphic’s Department open to all students around the North West. Our 3^rd year students attended and got involved with the workshop to create powerful messages through stencilling, hand made typography.

Alice Rawsthorn: Design as an Attitude book launch
Anthony Burgess Foundation

Students attended this inspiring event hosted by Cornerhouse Publications. Q&A with Alice Rawsthorn, award winning design critic and Malcolm Garrett, high profile designer. Students chatted with Alice and also Malcolm at the end of the event.

Conference: D(isrupt)M
Bridgewater Hall

Celebrating the noise makers, the pioneers and inspirational creators. Now in it’s sixth year, this day long conference of of ideas and inspiration featured internationally celebrated speakers showcasing their work that included branding, illustration, film, architecture, typography and much more. Various workshops also took place throughout the day.

Main speakers included: Morag Myerscough, Anthony Burrill, Matt Ipcar, Kate Dawkins, Ben Wright, Liza Enebeis, Michael Wolff, Madeline Kay, Kaye Dunnings.

Manchester Print Fair
Whitworth Gallery

The Manchester Print Fair is an independent arts event celebrating the best of design, illustration and independent publishing in the North West. With over 50 stalls, the event offers visitors the chance to take home hand crafted gifts from independent makers.

The People Are Revolting
Manchester Art Gallery

Building on the theme of disruption, attendees were asked to make a statement using stencils/slogans and create their own protest. Led by Berlin based artist Patrick Thomas.

Craft talks at LEAF Portland Street
LEAF

Front row seats for our students at this inspiring event with talks from artist Mr Bingo, Illustrator Tash Willcocks and Jenna Campbell.

Paula Scher
Sheffield Hallam University

Some of our 3^rd years ventured over to Sheffield to see the creative icon, Pentagram partner, Paula Scher talk about her life’s work. Hosted by the Graphic Design department at Sheffield Hallam University.

WeJoinTheDots / LadiesWhoDesignMCR
The Hive

A collaboration to bring a workshop session to Manchester, ‘Communicating Feminism Through Semiotics’ Not just for ladies, our 3^rd years attended this event, getting involved in various tasks.

4Designers

Trip: 4Designers Conference
Purpose: Employer Engagement

This year’s trip to the 4Designers Conference turnout out to be quite a special one. Guest speakers included Jim Sutherland Founder Studio Sutherl&, Katherina Tudball Design Director The Partners (now SuperUnion), Bryan Edmondson Founder SEA Design and Jonathan Barnbrook Founder of Barnbrook. Jim Sutherland showed his designs for the D&AD annual, Katherina Tudball showed Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and SuperUnion’s new branding, Bryan Edmondson had a message from Rakin to the conference and branding for Monotype, Jonathan Barnbrook showed work with David Bowie including album art for The Next Day and Blackstar. We also got to chat with Katherina before and after the conference, Lucy gained her as a mentor and we visited SuperUnion the following day.

“Reflecting on #4D2018 on the way into uni today and I’d just like to give a huge thanks to @andSutherland, @Tudballistic, @SEA_London and @barnbrook for 4 amazing talks and a massive thanks to the man that made it possible @mrbaglee”
Alex Crange (Tweet)

SuperUnion

Trip: 4Designers Conference
Purpose: Employer Engagement

Having met & watched Katherina Tudball’s lecture at 4Designers in London we were lucky enough to visit her agency SuperUnion the following day. SuperUnion is the name of the new WPP branding agency network that has brought together five agencies, Brand Union, The Partners, Lambie-Nairn, Addison and VBAT. The creatives we met (and introductions that were made) were with people recognised as leaders in the creative field, including Stuart Radford, Katherina Tudball with presentations given by Jonathan Brodie and Becki Sewell. Explanations regarding, process and design were given on the following award winning or globally celebrated projects – Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London Symphony Orchestra and Argos Simply Value Range, plus they gifted us two copies of ‘A Smile In The Mind 2’ the revised and updated copy of the original creative bible ‘A Smile In The Mind’.

“I have found this whole experience  inspiring and very moving.”
Jessica Leite

 

James Keeble

Achievements: Placement @ Havas Lynx
Progression to: Job at The Flava People

Following a chance meeting with a Havas Lynx employee, Jamie added them to the End of Year Show invite list and took the opportunity to deliver the invite by hand; securing their attendance at the show. During the show, Jamie’s contact offered a way into Havas Lynx and he sent his CV & portfolio to them. His email resulted in a two-week paid placement under the supervision of D&AD winner and creative director Paul Kinsella. At Havas Lynx Jamie impresses Paul with his creative work commenting on one idea “that’s f***k’n genius!”. Paul offered Jamie a mentoring programme with routes into the industry using his valuable contacts.

Update: Jamie is now working at The Flava People as a package designer with clients such as YO!, No Yolk and Flava~it. He recently gave an Alumni talk during lockdown on Packaging Design. Students can now watch this talk through Teams.

“It was such an eye opener, it showed me how hard you have to work.  I speak so highly of this course, if I’d gone to MMU I would never have got out of it, what I got out of this.”
James Keeble

Alex Crangle 

Achievements: TPW Placement
Progression to: BA Top-up

Through emailing the Creative Director at TPW Alex secured a placement for two years and has been working with them over the summer holidays on multiple briefs including advertising and branding projects for local SME’s and Darwin Council. As part of our Mentor programme Alex has been able to develop his relationship with TPW carrying out a live brief to brand a new company in the sports nutrition market. He has recently been offered a third-year placement this summer with TPW. Alex is an active student carrying out live work with Ribble Valley Inns, entered Penguin Designs Awards and is connected (and building) his industry contacts through his
Linkedin profile.

“The Mentor programme is a great way to get your foot in the door at a company – it really helps you engage with industry.”
Alex Crangle

Charlotte Leicester

Achievements: Fearlesss Ltd
Progression to: Job @ Fealesss Ltd

Charlotte was a confident student graduating with a portfolio which married ‘concept based design solutions’ with a ‘great eye for colour and typography’. Her competence in live briefs and client facing developed through a range of curriculum based commercial projects – seeing her working with companies such as Unity Radio, InCell and Stop the Traffik. Using this experience and confidence Charlotte gained a web publishing placement at WSP Global, which supported her second year of study. Pursuing her interest in fashion retail design Charlotte secured a full-time job at Fearlesss where she worked on the company identity, drafting the brand guidelines, creating templates for social media content and designing promotional content and digital mailers.

“I didn’t have a clue about graphics until I came here – it made me realise what my skills were.”
Charlotte Leicester

Richard Raby

Achievements: Job @ Ahoy
Progression to: BA Stockport

Richard was a methodical conceptual designer with a passion for typography and an eye for detail. During his time on the course he worked on a range of live briefs including an advertising campaign for Mercedes Smart car, an identity for The High Growth Foundation and a range of covers for the Penguin Design Awards. He progressed to Stockport for his top-up year and then gained a job at Ahoy. In order to get himself noticed he included lager with the End of Year Show invite, which promoted Ahoy to visit the show. He now guest lectures on our course introducing students to Ahoy’s methodology on Branding.

Thomas Dyke

Achievements: Job @  Divine Trash / MFS Sub Brand for UCEN (TMC)
Progression to: BA Top-Up

Thomas graduated with a strong and varied portfolio which included branding, typography, advertising, app & screen design, apparel design and illustration. Upon graduating he gained a place working in the apparel street fashion design outlet Divine Trash clothes are available at www.blueinc.co.uk. This year whilst showing applicants around the course two piped up saying they owned the T-Shirt designs displayed on our wall! They were inspired to find out that the designer of the clothes they had purchased had come from this course. During Thomas’ time on the course he also designed an identity for the Manchester Film School which has now become an officially recognised sub brand of UCEN.

Leanne McLaughlin

Achievements: Job @ Degree 53
Progression to: BA Top-Up

Leanne graduated from the BA top-up with a successful show demonstrating strong, confident, left-field design work. During her studies she worked on the re-branding of Moston Campus’ restaurant, the Purpose placement brief and developed her own zine which featured heavily at her show. Since graduation Leanne has secured a job with the award winning, 45 strong, digital agency Degree 53 who’s clients include Sofaworks, Betfred Lotto and football Acca.