Brighton Graphic Design & Illustration Degree Show

Five minutes with Holly Wales

Unfortunately Holly couldn’t make it to our Et Cetera talks on Monday, so instead we forwarded her some questions about her life as a super hero and as an illustrator. Here is what she had to say in response.

Who is your biggest inspiration?

Everyone who’s ever done the things they believed in, even if they didn’t work out the way they expected. To have the discipline to keep working along a path not yet understood, which seems at times to verge way off the plan.


If you had a super power for a day, what would it be and what would you do?

Travel at the speed of light = no flights required, to anywhere in the world. Just to hang out and do some drawing, to surprise my eyes, to reset, to meet new people with stories to tell.


Has being a woman in design posed challenges?

Art and design is a very competitive world, and one that becomes socially competitive too. I don’t know if that makes it consistently easy for anyone, really. 


If your work was a dog what would it be?

A Bone.


Who has been your favourite client and why?

I absolutely love working with the Royal College of Art Outreach programme on the Frieze Education Space. We are about to start all over again in time for October 2011!  I’m lucky that I get to work with a great team (my friend Hannah Murgatroyd produces all the fantastic content and plays the role of art director, and I invited pals Europa to do the design). Each year there is always a great solid theme to play the imagery off but nothing so stifling that you end up getting back what you expected when you started.


If you could live in a film, what film would it be and why? 

I could never choose to live inside spaces with constant direction and a lack of autonomy! Refer to Question 2 for solution.


And if you have time I wondered if you draw something that begins with B.

For more of Holly’s work check out her website.

Last night’s Pecha Kucha talks

A big thanks to everyone who came along to last night’s evening of Pecha Kucha talks, held at our exhibition space, it was a fantastic evening!

A captive audience were treated to (according to George Hardie) one of “the most eclectic and diverse combination of speakers” from the creative industries in a little while.

The professor himself kicked off the evening, showcasing the best of his iconic style and graphic wit from a career spanning more than 40 years. He was followed up by fantastically-difficult-to-categorize Lucia Massari, an RCA illustration graduate whose quirky blend of visual puns in the form of installations, photographs, collages and short films, made for an entertaining 15 minutes. Ex-Brighton student, David Wilson talked us through how his love for Bjork and Karaoke nights, among other things have helped inspire a glittering string of commissions since leaving univeristy, including his latest music video for the band Metronomy.

After a short break for beers and snacks, Kirsty and Emma from award winning design studio, A Practice For Everyday Life let us in on some of the secrets behind their favourite projects from the past few years. The evening was rounded off by the charming creative Riitta Ikonen, who kindly stepped in at the last minute, due to illustrator Holly Wales unfortunately being forced to cancel. Riitta often works with costumes, and we are all very much looking forward to seeing the completed photographs of her Norwegian Folklore project, the rough versions of which she was kind enough to share with us last night. 

An enormously warm thank you to all of our speakers who came along to present last night, it was a great evening enjoyed by all!

Apologies to those who were looking forward to hearing Holly Wales — keep checking our blog for an interview with the lady herself, coming soon!

We have been really happy with the nice words and reviews we have received over the last few days. It’s always especially life affirming when someone takes the time to blog and mention different people in the show, so we were delighted when lifestyleBAZAAR wrote about some of our graduates.

Last night was epic! We had our private view at the Rochelle School and we were blown away by the turn out. Massive thanks to all who came and there are plenty more events and chances to check out the show coming up over the next few days. Check out the website for more info on our Et Cetera events. 

We wanted to apologise to everyone who didn’t make it into the show. Unfortunately health and safety regulations reared its ugly head. We would love to see you at the show so we really hope anyone who couldn’t get in will come back.

The show during the set up…

…and then a few hours later:

Were very happy today to see we have a nice pre-show write up from Grafik.

Check it out here.