Design students from LCC earned Print Futures Awards for their work redesigning the awards event programme and the Printing Charity‘s annual report.
Words by Jyoti Mann
The Print Futures Awards is an initiative by the Printing Charity who have been working with LCC throughout 2017 to bring a fresh new look to some of their print materials. Students from the Design School across undergraduate and postgraduate level presented their ideas and concepts to the charity. Designers were then selected to create the final designs.
Szu-yun Chang (MA Graphic Media Design), Yin Yu Chen (MA Graphic Branding and Identity), and Linlin Pan (MA Illustration and Visual Media), were selected to create the annual report. Costanza De Luca (BA (Hons) Graphic and Media Design), was chosen to design the Print Futures Awards programme.
Szu-yun Chang told us, “I am very glad that we were given the chance to design the report, because for us it is not only a challenge in design but also in working with a British industry. As an international student I think the experience is very special.
“We approached the Annual Report by thinking about who will be reading it and what information people would want to know from the report. We focused on visualising the data and numbers and tried to keep the layout as clean as possible.
“I learned a lot from working with my teammates and with Mark from Reason Design. It is good to experience the commercial side of the design industry. It was also amazing to see how many processes and collaborations are required to make a design into a product during the visit to Saxoprint.”
“I believe I won the competition thanks to the encouragement of my tutor and the will to challenge myself every time I have the opportunity. This year has been fundamental for my education and my future professional life” – Costanza De Luca
Costanza De Luca
The LCC students participating were also given the opportunity to visit a Saxoprint’s printing press in Dresden, Germany. 2017’s Print Futures Awards were presented at the House of Lords on 20th July, where the students attended and were rewarded for the involvement.
“The biggest challenge for us was how to present our work for commercial purposes. We tried to create a design that would organise all the text The Printing Charity gave to us, clarified the layout as well as highlighted the data,” said Linlin Pan.
Print Futures were awarded a grant of up to £1,500 each to help pay for costst associated with a relevant training course or professional development activity.
Costanza De Luca said, “I believe I won the competition thanks to the encouragement of my tutor and the will to challenge myself every time I have the opportunity. This year has been fundamental for my education and my future professional life. I demonstrated to myself that I can manage multiple tasks at the same time and feel The Printing Charity trusts my work.
“The trip to Saxoprint was amazing, I am so pleased I had the opportunity to go. I did not expect such a huge place and was surprised by the incredible quantity of machineries used for each step of production. I saw works in progress from across Europe, all of them created in Dresden.
“I should thank Reason Design as well, especially Mark who has been incredibly patient and has brilliant design skills. He taught me a lot in only two days, showing me his works as well. It is always a pleasure to learn from someone who has such a long experience in the graphic design sector. I really hope to work again in the future with The Printing Charity and I advise anyone to participate in the next competition.”
The awards ceremony celebrated the work of 74 other young people from across the UK who are studying or working in printing, publishing, packaging or graphic arts. Applications for 2018’s Print Futures Awards will open in the spring.
Keep an eye on The Printing Charity’s Twitter or Facebook to find out when.