UCF students achieve success in Royal Society of Arts awards scheme

Students from three of University College Falmouth’s design courses have been singled out for success in this year’s prestigious RSA Design Directions awards.

RSA Design Directions encourage emerging young designers to engage with the broader social and environmental context in which they will work after graduation. The award scheme invites entrants to create work in response to a broad range of projects with this year’s themes including Sustainable Tourism, Design for Patient Safety, Designing Wellbeing, Wired Design, Sustainable Packaging, Ceramic Futures, Postage Stamps, Fashion and Fashion Interiors.

Two BA(Hons) Graphic Design students – Tom Love and Leanne Thomas – won awards in the Postage Stamps category; BA(Hons) 3D Design student, Harriet Bayliss, won an award in the Designing Wellbeing category; and the work of Rebecca Griffiths from BA(Hons) Textile Design was Highly Commended in the Fashion Interiors category.

The Postage Stamp brief invited entrants to explore ways of depicting the many cultural festivals and celebrations of the various religious groups and nationalities that make up the UK population on a set of six 1st class stamps that could potentially be purchased at the beginning of the year and then used to mark the various seasonal events at the appropriate dates.

For their responses to this brief, Tom Love won the overall Royal Mail stamp award comprising £1,250 to support a six-week internship at Pentagram London, a further Royal Mail award of £1,000 and a De La Rue award of £450 for additional support. Leanne Thomas won a Royal Mail award of £3,000.

The Designing Wellbeing brief encouraged entrants to research the consumer’s relationship with products that promote ‘feeling well’, to identify a need, and then create a product solution in response to that need.

Harriet Bayliss won the overall prize of a 12-week GlaxoSmithKline Internship worth £5,625 for her response to this brief, which involved designs for products that embraced the idea of a 'tree for life'. The design enabled users to plant a tree that celebrates the birth, active life and death of family members in a sustainable way. Harriet made use of green field forest plantations to create areas to plant the trees which acted as natural burial grounds and a range of products from baby toys made from natural materials to a photo album which encouraged an active bond between the site and users.

The Fashion Interiors brief was to design an exciting and innovative fabric collection for either a domestic or public interior space based around the concept of Protection and Provenance. Rebecca Griffiths’ mixed media collection of stitched and appliquéd fabrics and wallpapers, referencing Britain in the 1920s and 1950s, using materials donated by family and friends in a modern ‘make-do-and-mend’ sustainable way won Rebecca her judges’ commendation. Fellow student, Hettie Nettheim, also made the final shortlist of 12 which was a notable achievement.

The awards were judged by international industry professionals from the worlds of graphic design, advertising, architecture, textile and product design.

“Awards schemes like the RSA’s provide students with invaluable experience of the professional world,” commented University College Falmouth’s Director of Design, John Miller. “Such high profile successes from a wide range of design disciplines are a tribute not only to the hard work and commitment of the students themselves, but also to our staff.”

For further information about BA(Hons) Graphic Design at University College Falmouth, please visit www.falmouth.ac.uk/graphicdesign, email admissions@falmouth.ac.uk or telephone Admissions on 01326 214352.

For further information about BA(Hons) 3D Design at University College Falmouth, please visit www.falmouth.ac.uk/3ddesign , email admissions@falmouth.ac.uk or telephone Admissions on 01326 213730.

For further information about BA(Hons) Textile Design at University College Falmouth, please visit www.falmouth.ac.uk/textiledesign , email admissions@falmouth.ac.uk or telephone Admissions on 01326 214385.

University College Falmouth is a founding partner in the Combined Universities in Cornwall, a unique initiative to promote regional economic regeneration through higher education. The CUC is funded mainly by the European Union (Objective One), the South West Regional Development Agency, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, with support from Cornwall County Council.

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