Rose wins GOLD at A.O.I

Rose Lloyd a graduate of the Illustration course from 2009 has won Gold at the Association of Images (AOI) Images 35 Awards. Rose attended the Images 35 Awards evening at the Bankside Gallery. She was awarded the Gold award in the Advertising category for her image "Spring Family Concert" which was commissioned for the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, this job was actually born out of a meeting with an agency from the 'Are we there yet' bus trip that some students were part of to promote their degree show.

'Images' is the UK's leading illustration competition, annual, awards show, and touring exhibition dedicated to showcasing the very best contemporary illustration published in the UK. The work selected to appear in 'Images' is judged by a highly regarded panel of industry experts, spanning multiple categories, and is an annual competition.

This is such wonderful news.

Manchester and Salford Illustrated

In October 2011 (27th October – 10th November to be precise) the very first Manchester and Salford Illustrated exhibition (#MASI) will be held at 52 Princess Street, Manchester. It will be a showcase of the very best commercial artists and illustrators in the area and has been created to raise funds and awareness for a Manchester based charity. Some of our graduates are involved and students are also invited to submit work.

'Music' Project

I recently completed an installation for a design agency in Manchester called Music. They were looking for students to create a design to cover a glass room in their studio. The brief was to interpret a song of your choice in the design - my chosen track was 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' by The Beatles. I used Illustrator to produce my design and then vinyl to stick it to the glass. Each shape is a separate piece of vinyl so it was like putting together a huge jigsaw! Anyway, Jo asked me to post some pics of the finished thing, so here they are...

Philippa Lightburn (2nd Year Illustration)

Winner of Folio Society / House of Illustration

Our friend (and hero!) of the course Matthew Richardson has won the Folio Society / House of Illustration Competition. The prize was a commission to work on "The Outsider" by Albert Camus. Here are a couple of the images from the book. Well done Matthew.

The Drum

The Drum magazine is a magazine released every fortnight that gathers the latest industry news in creative marketing and media. As part of the promotion for The Unleashed campaign, The Drum have used Janet Kershaw's 'Preservation Bear' as the front cover. This bear has is bring good luck wherever he goes!

Puffin Children's Prize

The winners have been announced on the penguin website of the Puffin Children's Prize, to competition, to design a book cover for James and The Giant Peach by Roald Dahl.

Unleashed: The best in the North

The Judges Janet Kershaw: Preservation Bear
Jane Richardson: Ralph

This competition ran last year by the infamous Manchester public house, Mr Thomas's Chop House, - follow the link for the Top 25 image gallery and more information about the event. It's designed to create opportunities for the latest talent emerging from the region’s art schools – and to raise much-needed funds for the North West Air Ambulance. It was a roaring success and was repeated this year. As a college we entered 20 pieces. All the work will be shown in an exhibition and an auction and sale of the best student artwork in the North, 2011 will follow. Congratulations to Jane Richardson and Janet Kershaw, from Year 3 whose work has been selected for the Top 25 shortlist of illustration work in the Northwest. From Thursday 23rd June there will be 3 weeks of public display, private viewings, auction previews and creative industry nights. Then on Thursday 14th July an Awards Night, Gala Dinner and Charity Auction – featuring the judges’ top-ranked work.