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Bringing student work to life in 1,000 pieces with not just a shop

Three-part visual featuring not just a shop jigsaw box assets. The right side shows two interview posters, displaying both front and back views. Each poster is titled with the artwork name and artist name, and includes a black and white portrait of the artist, interview text, a quote, and information about not just a shop. The left side displays two 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle boxes featuring artworks by Julia Marolt and Ana Andriuskina. The background is butter yellow.
  • Written byLily Forbes, Midweight Designer and Lynn Yang, Junior Designer, UAL Creative
  • Published date 15 December 2025
Three-part visual featuring not just a shop jigsaw box assets. The right side shows two interview posters, displaying both front and back views. Each poster is titled with the artwork name and artist name, and includes a black and white portrait of the artist, interview text, a quote, and information about not just a shop. The left side displays two 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle boxes featuring artworks by Julia Marolt and Ana Andriuskina. The background is butter yellow.
Jigsaws by Julia Marolt, 2026 BA Graphic Design Communication, Central Saint Martins, UAL and Ana Andriuskina, 2025 BA Illustration and Visual Media, London College of Communication, UAL | Design direction: Creative, UAL

Managed by the Careers and Employability department, not just a shop exclusively sells work created by the University of the Arts London (UAL) students and alumni. They exist to support students and alumni with their businesses, reinvesting profits back into the community through our enterprise learning offer.

The brief

Early in 2025, not just a shop launched a new student competition, asking for artwork for a 1,000 piece jigsaw to be sold in time for Christmas 2025 gift shopping. The competition submission opened to UAL students and alumni in May 2025, with applicants submitting their designs. The panel, including Savvy Bader, Midweight Designer in the Creative team, selected final artwork designs by Central Saint Martins student Julia Marolt and London College of Communication graduate Ana Andriuskina.

The Creative team were briefed to support on the jigsaw box design to ensure it was on brand, elevated the selected artwork and would be eye-catching on the shelves in the not just a shop store.

This is not just a shop's first jigsaw and the Creative Team did a fantastic job creating a contemporary jigsaw box and fold out poster that champions UAL's talent to the London high street. My favourite part of the design process was seeing their 3D box mock ups which was a great way to understand how the design would look when produced. The collaboration has given the winning students an amazing portfolio piece and I can't wait for them to see their designs turned into a retail ready product!

— Clio Delcour-Min, not just a shop Retail and Student Engagement Coordinator, Careers and Employability - Support, UAL
Photograph of a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle in progress on a table. The puzzle features hand-drawn-style artwork. A hand is placing a piece into the puzzle, with a cup of coffee, a half-eaten mince pie on a small plate. The puzzle box, labeled 'ual: 1,000 Piece Puzzle by Ana Andriuskina for not just a shop', sits beside the puzzle.
not just a shop jigsaw by Ana Andriuskina, 2025 BA Illustration and Visual Media, London College of Communication, UAL | Photograph: Yeshen Venema | Stylist: Exhibeo
Photograph of a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle in progress on a table. The puzzle features colourful, playful artwork with characters and bright shapes. A hand is placing a piece into the puzzle, with a cup of coffee, a half-eaten mince pie on a small plate, and wrapped sweets nearby. The puzzle box, labeled 'ual: 1,000 Piece Puzzle by Julia Marolt for not just a shop', sits beside the puzzle, and two festive paper crackers are placed in the background.
not just a shop jigsaw by Julia Marolt, 2026 BA Graphic Design Communication, Central Saint Martins, UAL | Photograph: Yeshen Venema | Stylist: Exhibeo

The creative process

We started with research; exploring some of our favourite puzzle box designs and visiting department stores to see how the packaging works in a retail environment. Our office being in the same building as the not just a shop retail store was super helpful to be able to review products on sale and see how our designs could fit within this space.

We knew we wanted the student work to be the most dominant part of the artwork to celebrate their designs, whilst also ensuring the UAL brand and product details are easy to see on the shelf whilst shopping for festive gifts. Between 3 designers we developed 3 concepts for the box design, and suggested an additional A3 print to be included inside the box to help buyers be able to follow the artwork whilst putting the puzzle together.

We settled on a design with the lid being full bleed artwork, with a small label wrapping around the bottom edge of the box including the UAL logo, student name and details about the product. The colour of the label for each jigsaw design is selected from an area of the artwork to ensure the box feels cohesive, allowing the student work to take centre stage.

We then developed the folded A3 insert, which includes an interview between the artist and not just a shop on the back side of the artwork poster. Taking inspiration from magazines, newspapers and other leaflets we could find in the libraries, we developed a dynamic editorial design which we hope can be enjoyed by buyers and receivers of the jigsaw puzzle.

  • Screenshots of a Miro board used in our creative process. The board includes our research on jigsaw puzzle designs from other brands and pictures from research trips to department stores in London.
    Miro board showing jigsaw research process, Creative, UAL
  • Photograph showing the design process of creating an interview poster. Our designers experimented with layout by cutting and arranging text blocks and images from newspapers to check composition for the poster design.
    Creative team workshop to design interview poster, 2025 | Photograph: Lily Forbes
  • Scans of poster design layout experiments. It shows early test of the design composition, typography, images.
    Poster design prototype using newspaper collage, 2025
  • Scans of poster design layout experiments. It shows early test of the design composition, typography, images.
    Poster design prototype using newspaper collage, 2025
  • Three paper jigsaw box mock-ups stacked on top of each other on a white background. The box design concepts show different colour applications to test which works best for the student images.
    Jigsaw box mockups, 2025 | Photograph: Lynn Yang
It was such a pleasure being on the puzzle artwork panel – there were so many fabulous designs! I really enjoyed working with NJAS behind the scenes of a competition as well. We considered each design for it’s artistry, how it would present as a puzzle and whether it felt like it would reach NJAS target audience. It was a tough choice but in the end we selected both these winners because it felt like every piece of their designs would be a joy to place in a final puzzle.

— Savvy Bader, Midweight Designer, Creative, UAL
Two-part visual featuring not just a shop jigsaw box assets. The right side shows a 1,000-piece jigsaw box with an artwork by Julia Marolt. The left side displays a printed interview poster titled 'The Creative Outbreak' Julia Marolt, including a black-and-white portrait of the artist, interview text, a quote, and information about not just a shop. The background is butter yellow colour.
Jigsaw by Julia Marolt, 2026 BA Graphic Design Communication, Central Saint Martins, UAL | Design direction: Creative, UAL
Two-part visual featuring not just a shop jigsaw box assets. The right side shows a 1,000-piece jigsaw box with an artwork by Ana Andriuskina. The left side displays a printed interview poster titled ‘Something Borrowed’ Ana Andriuskina, including a black-and-white portrait of the artist, interview text, a quote, and information about not just a shop. The background is deep navy colour.
Jigsaw by Ana Andriuskina, 2025 BA Illustration and Visual Media, London College of Communication, UAL | Design direction: Creative, UAL

View and buy a jigsaw from not just a shop

Meet the team

About UAL Creative

UAL Creative is University of the Arts London’s in-house design studio.

Since 2019 we have been building a team including alumni, recent graduates and occasionally students. We are a group of multi-disciplinary designers—freelance and permanent, Junior to Senior. Typically, you'll find the team working on: design strategy, design systems and campaign design including print, digital and animation for teams and projects across the University.

We are within the Communications Department in the Social Purpose Group and based at the High Holborn campus. We also work with designers through UAL Arts Temps, our university recruitment agency and jobs board, giving our students and alumni the opportunity to work freelance within our team.

Creative team

Asia Domagalska she/her/hers, Freelance Junior Designer, 2022 BA Graphic Media Design, London College of Communication, UAL

Emily Sear she/her/hers, Senior Designer, 2012 BA Graphic Design, University of Hertfordshire

Lily Forbes she/her/hers, Midweight Designer, 2020 BA Graphic Design Communication, Chelsea College of Arts , UAL

Lynn Yang she/her/hers, Junior Designer, 2023 BA Graphic Communication Design, Central Saint Martins, UAL

Stephanie Feather she/her/hers, Head of Creative, 2008 BA Graphic Design, Central Saint Martins, UAL

Collaborators

not just a shop

Natalie Stevens
not just a shop Manager, Careers and Employability - Support, UAL

Clio Delcour-Min
not just a shop Retail and Student Engagement Coordinator, Careers and Employability - Support UAL

For more about our in-house creative studio or to work with us: creative@arts.ac.uk

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