10 Things I Learnt In My First Year At University

So I found this post while browsing through my drafts. I had almost finished it but clearly forgot all about it and it never got published. Though it's been about four months since I finished my first year at university, I thought it might be nice to put this post out anyway since there's a lot of people just beginning their time at university around about now. So, here's the post that got lost...

The Good And Bad Of Moving To London

As you may know, last September I moved to London, so I've been living in the Big Smoke for about five months now - where on Earth has that time gone?! Moving away from everything and everyone I know has been the biggest change of my life and there's been a lot of settling in to do! I know there's a lot of people out there considering making the same move, be it for university, a job or just a change. Today I thought I'd discuss how I've found the move with a few pros and cons of upping sticks to England's big city.

University Room Tour

Two months ago I up sticks to London for my first year of university and my little room in the big city is starting to feel much more homely now. In fact, I often find myself getting told off by my mum for referring to London as "home" when I go back to visit (even though when I'm down here I always refer to Manchester as home)! Now that I'm settled in I thought it would be nice to share a few pictures of how I've made my room in student halls my own.

7 Things I Learnt In My First 7 Days In London

So, I moved to the Big Smoke. That actually happened. So far it's been a whirlwind, a culture shock and a blast all rolled into one and I've only been here for a few weeks! During my first week I learnt a lot of lessons, some useful and some perhaps not so much. Today I thought I'd record 7 of them here - hopefully in a few years time I'll be able to look back and see how far I've come with fitting in down south! So here they are, the musings of a northerner stuck down south, week 1...

Art Foundation Final Exhibition (FMP #4)

So it's all over. One year (or 9 months if you want to get technical) of blood, sweat, tears, sweat, stress, hard work, sweat and late nights. Before I started my art foundation, I was something of a lost confused soul, watching all of my friends go off to uni but having little idea of which path in art and design I wanted to take myself. Twelve months on, I can now whole heartedly say that a foundation course was the best thing I could have possibly done for myself and my future. I have never worked so hard and created so much work in such a short space of time, or developed my creative capabilities in such a profound way. 

With the end of the year comes the final exhibition. This is the culmination of everything from the year, but in particular the ten week final major project. I've done a few posts on my FMP previously which I will link here, here and here. The foundation exhibition goes up alongside all of the degree shows at Manchester School of Art and is ultimately a big part of the final grade. 

On the surface, my FMP has stayed consistent to my original subject as experimenting with letterforms has been central throughout the ten weeks. However, discovering textiles was a defining turning point for me and what I initially intended to be a short research test turned into a change of direction. From that point onwards, the craft, process and materials became key. I taught myself how to knit and crochet and my focus changed from illustrating phrases with typography onto testing, exploring and developing the potential of traditional textiles crafts in the context of graphic design and typography.

After weeks of testing, developing, refining and many balls of wool later, I have created one piece to showcase what I have been working on in my FMP. I will insert a few photographs but as a general outline, my final show is a wall piece in which I have recreated the definition of 'TYPOGRAPHY' with crochet and knitted letters, replicating the links, fonts and punctuation of online dictionaries...

I am really genuinely happy with how my exhibition has turned out. As a huge perfectionist it was difficult to let go of the fact that this is a handmade piece of graphic design, and so imperfections are necessary to its character. The 'homemade' element is, I hope, a part of the charm. It's been a labour of love to bring this exhibition to life and I feel at a bit of a loss now that its all over!

On Monday I handed in all of my supporting work from the year, my portfolio, sketchbooks and artist research for marking over the next couple of weeks. After this time the Manchester School of Art degree show will open to the public (which I will do a little post on with more details), so essentially I am finished for the summer now. I have loved every single minute of being in a creative environment this year, I have met such amazingly talented friends and tutors and I truly wish I could do it all over again.

Now though, it's time for some chill time...