Develop your creative skills on this graphic design summer course and generate striking designs for your portfolio, ideal for the next generation of ambitious designers.
You’ll work alongside like-minded creatives, exploring all aspects of visual communication in a vibrant studio environment.
This course will provide you with the fundamentals of graphic design and will introduce you to designing with a focus on making and experimentation.
With an emphasis on communication and visualisation skills, you’ll create artwork from the point of view of a creative thinker and as an advocate for a cause and social change, and any other ideas you’d like to communicate.
You’ll build portfolio-standard work that’ll support a college or university application and will help you to gain further experience and transferable skills in effective design.
You’ll be encouraged to think creatively during your time at NTU, gaining technical skills based on a design brief around a current social, political or environmental issue.
Practical tasks will be set each day, culminating in exciting visuals suitable for a portfolio.
The tasks set will challenge preconceptions about the things around you and will help you develop, explore and experiment with unusual starting points.
On this course you will:
• learn about and practise the process behind effective graphic design
• be introduced to the language associated with graphic design
• consider formal elements such as colour, layout, composition and typography
• discuss current events and issues and their impact on design
• practice creating graphic design content that speaks to your audience
• make a design a day to experiment and get ideas flowing
• appreciate how the choices we make with regards to design and typography shape the tone of a message.
What will you gain?
By the end of the course you’ll have the beginnings of a portfolio of work, one that has been produced in an informal and creative, yet challenging, environment.
You’ll leave with a real hand-on experience of what it is like to be a design student at university, and an understanding of what admissions tutors are looking for.
Where you’ll learn: You will be based in the School of Art and Design on the City Campus.
You’ll find collaborative working spaces where you develop your sketches and concepts, and IT suites equipped with industry standard software including Adobe Creative Cloud.
You’ll also have access to our library to use outside of your short course; whilst you can’t reserve or take away books, you are welcome to use them as a resource for research and referencing.
Level: Open to all
Entry requirement: You should have an enthusiasm for design, communication and visual arts, and an interest in developing your creative and technical skills.
No previous design or software experience is required for this course.
Good ideas and a willingness to collaborate are more important.
Here’s what our previous attendees said:
‘We explored aspects of graphic design unknown to me before, created a final design that can be used in my portfolio. The teacher was very helpful and let us explore and create freely, and we met and worked with a professional. It was great! I learned a lot! MB
‘Very fun five days, thank you!’ RT
‘Craig is very approachable and helpful, thank you’ AB
Tutor Profile: Craig Proud runs a creative workshop, design
and print studio, Dizzy Ink.
Being a lover of education and grassroots activism, Craig has focused his personal research into Notts Zine Library, a free open and accessible resource currently based in Nottingham Contemporary.
With an extensive portfolio, Craig has been involved in many projects with a cause and continues to do so.
His artwork has been exhibited at Nottingham Castle, alongside V&A’s collection of activist media for the exhibition: A World to Win, 2015.
As well as putting on workshops for D&AD New Blood and various festivals; another highlight was being commissioned to produce a special exhibition around the UK’s referendum.
Through his print studio Dizzy Ink, he led QUADs major exhibition, titled, Three Months On, 2016.
Need accommodation?
If you’re aged 16 or 17 then you can stay unaccompanied with agreement from a parent/guardian.
Doing your Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award?
This course can count as your Gold DofE Residential.
DofE participants must book both the course and accommodation on campus for this to count towards your Gold Award.
