On Wednesday I attended the briefing for this years professional development project for the third year graphic students in UWIC. It's the third year we have been involved in the project and every year it is always interesting to get an idea of the people that will be graduating in around 9 months or so.

This year the project is a very challenging one. UWIC have managed to arrange a joint project with Cardiff Airport to look into how people experience Wales for the first time. How on arrival, do passengers perceive Cardiff and what it has to offer? For a graphic project it is going to be interesting to see how the project develops as it could quite easily be an, interior design/product design/service design, even architecture brief. So I think their initial issues will be how BIG do they go?


Around Rhoose.

The format for the project is very interesting as well with the meeting/workshop being attended by members of Visit Wales, airport staff, stakeholders, and a number of design agencies. Thinking back to when I was a student this would be a huge deal for me as these people have taken time out of their schedule to help out on the brief, and it is a great chance to get noticed.

The initial workshop being delivered by elmwood design agency, who will be delivering the brief to the students in the next week or so. We are looking forward to seeing who we get for the project and to see what they come up with, in response to the challenges.

At the end of last week we managed to get to UWIC's / CSAD MA show at Howard Gardens. The graduate show covered ceramics right through to new media. As with everything there were pieces I really liked and others that I didn't get. There were a number, however that I will remember for a while longer such as the above image and also me and Carwyn playing around in the piece below. If you are in Cardiff city centre and half an hour to play with I would definitely recommend you having a look around. It is on until the 17th September, go see.

It's come around again this year. Submission's for the Cardiff Design Festival that is. We are again helping out with the design work on the website and few other bits of brand communications. We are also going to be arranging some of the events through various other things we are involved in such as Creative Wales, and ThinkARK.

For us I think the great thing about the Cardiff Design Festival is that it has grown year on year. Sometimes through the sheer amount of events other times through networks and links created during the festival that turn into new projects/adventures.

The beginning of this week saw a group of students from UWIC visit us. They came to discuss a 'live' project that they have been working on for the last few weeks. This is the third time we have been involved in these 'live' projects and it is always great to see the different people that turn up. This year has been slightly different in that we have not set the brief, but have been asked to mentor them in the development of their projects. After speaking to Olwen, the idea of people working as groups rather than having everyone produce designs seemed to reflect the way studio's work in the real world, for experiencing it first hand I also believe the project has been beneficial for the students who have become less precious with their work.

Presentations are going to be this friday so fingers crossed for my group.

We are happy to announce that once again Hoffi will be setting a 'Live Brief' for the third year students at University of Wales Cardiff (UWIC). It will be the second year we have been involved in setting briefs for the students and it is something we really enjoyed last time. As well as Hoffi. Elfen, Stills and Staziker Jones will also be setting briefs for the students.

The projects begin early next week and for us, as we specialise in branding we will be setting a branding project for the students. We have set a challenging brief for them and hope that they will really get into the project. Last year we gave some of the students work experience in our studio which we hope also helped develop a sense of what it will be like for them to be a designer in a commercial sense. We will keep you posted on the outcome of the projects.