Hiring new talent through Graduate Showcase: Instagram illustrations by Lola White
- Written byKat Smith
- Published date 29 August 2023
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Reflecting the UAL community through our content is important, whether that’s platforming student work or sharing the voices of our staff. So, when we decided to commission designs for a new set of Instagram stickers, we knew it had to be from one of our talented graduating students.
We’re spoilt for choice with Graduate Showcase – an online platform showcasing the creative work of our graduating students. Ranging from fashion designers and architects to painters and ceramicists, the challenge is never finding enough talented creatives but finding so many that it’s hard to pick.
Lola White’s profile and project ‘Surviving the End’ immediately stood out when I looked at it – it was a bonus that it involved physical stickers and so helped me visualise how her work would translate to this project – even if her graduate project included severed fingers and plates of worms, which were unlikely to find their way into the sticker project for UAL (although I still want to buy a set).
It was important for Lola's visual style to shine through with her creative voice shaping the project. I started by giving Lola a list of words that related to UAL, and particularly graduation, to see how she responded to them. We eventually settled on a dark blue and white colour scheme, like her grad project, with visuals reflecting UAL’s creativity and celebratory nature. Lola said about the process from her perspective, “I started by brainstorming my initial ideas in my sketchbook before bringing them to life through Procreate. Initially, I thought of combining multiple colours and using more detailed marks for each sticker but after some tests, I realised the simplistic bold monochromatic stickers were more effective and suited my preferred way of working better!”
Working with Lola was great and a strong example of the value of giving young creatives the trust needed to do their best work. The back-and-forth on the colour schemes and details of each illustration helped us refine the stickers to become a cohesive set that reflected UAL without needing to have our branding on it.
Talking about her work, Lola says “I don’t think I have one particular style that I stick to consistently as I love to experiment with all different kinds of artistic processes and medias that lead to different results.
“I think this way of working is much more enjoyable and exciting, particularly as a young artist who’s still got a lot more learning to do. Why restrict yourself to only one style? Saying this, I do tend to gravitate towards a more linear bold graphical style of illustration. I love simplistic marks and bright colours so I often end up incorporating this into my illustrations.”
About Lola White
Lola White is a Foundation Diploma Art and Design graduate from Central Saint Martins. She’s from Brighton and is interested in storytelling and illustration.
See more of her work here.
About Graduate Showcase
Graduate Showcase is an online platform where our art, creative communication, design, fashion, media and performance graduates share their creativity with the world. It’s not just for us at UAL to use – anyone can use it to explore exciting new work including to hire, commission, or collaborate with our graduates.
Work on the platform spans art, creative
See more work on Graduate Showcase.