Product Design – Teaching Exchange in Norway
Electric motorbikes, arctic snow sledges, furniture made by prisoners and 30 degrees below zero…..
These are just some of the challenges which await three Edinburgh Napier 3rd year product design students currently on a 5 month echange programme in Norway. Accompanied by Richard Firth, programme leader for Product Design, our students arrived on 7 January at Akershus University college (near Oslo) to embark on a student exchange programme that will see them design, develop and produce design concepts as diverse as ceramics, clothing, furniture, medical equipment and electric motorbikes.
In addition to our Norwegian exchange programme, we have two students currently on study and work placements in Australia, with a further 6 students flying out to China in March to continue our established exchange programme in Zhengzhou.
Scottish Centre for the Book - Edinburgh City of Print - Website launch
Edinburgh City of Print is a joint project between the City of Edinburgh Museums and the Scottish Archive of Print and Publishing History Records (SAPPHIRE). City of Print is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Museum Galleries Scotland. See http://www.edinburghcityofprint.org
Music - Notes fromScotland
The Ian Tomlin Academy of Music was proud to present Notes from Scotland, an event on 6 December 2009 that celebrated the lives and music of two of the most reputable composers in our time, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, and Dr. James MacMillan. The day-long sequence of events included a lecture by Professor Richard McGregor, a composers’ forum featuring many of Scotland’s foremost composers, and an afternoon and evening concert given by Edinburgh Quartet and the Research Ensemble. The evening concert was followed by a reception hosted by the Lord Provost of Edinburgh at Greyfriars Kirk.
Product Design - Student lands job with Vidid Imaginations
Ross Coffield, a Product Design graduate from 2009 has landed a job with Vivid Imaginations, the UK’s biggest toy company and owner of big brands like Disney/Pixar. See http://www.vividimaginations.co.uk/
Ross was approached by Vivid at the exhibition New Designers and started work with them two weeks later. Ross will be on a stand at the 2010 UK national Toy Fair, 26th – 28th January at the Olympia Grand Hall, London http://www.toyfair.co.uk/
Ross Coffield’s final-year project “Puppets of Propaganda” grew out of his dissertation, which looked at Guerrilla Tactics in design. Combining influences from projects such as Troika’s SMS Guerilla Projector and Tad Hirsch’s Tripwire, Ross has proposed a Toy for children 6-10 years old which allows them to record a subversive message and play it back without being present.
See Ross's work on: http://edinburghnapierdegreeshow.com/2009/des/s.php?id=16
New Designers 2010
The School of Arts & Creative Industries will be at this year's New Designers, the graduate design showcase held at the Business Design Centre, Islington. http://www.newdesigners.com
14th November 2008
Edinburgh's Napier University Alumni Take Top Prize at Advertising Awards
David Grenfell and Chris Scott took the Young Creative Team of the Year award at the Scottish Advertising Awards for their inaugural collection of work which included briefs for beer brand Sol and IRN-BRU. The pair graduated from the MSc Creative Advertising course at Edinburgh's Napier University in 2006 and joined the Edinburgh based Leith Agency. Speaking about the course Chris said: "The course was very valuable. In many ways it mimics the day-to-day running of an agency, with the tutor acting as Creative Director, so it gives students a good grounding into the industry."
15th October 2008
Edinburgh's Napier University Film Graduate Wins Jim Poole Award
Edinburgh's Napier University film graduate Thomas Sheridan has won both the judges' award and audience award at the Jim Poole Short Film Awards for his film `Archive of Dreams'. The awards were set up nine years ago in memory of the late Jim Poole, the driving force behind the arthouse Cameo cinema in Edinburgh. The film had its world premiere at the Encounters Festival, Britains biggest short film festival, on 20th November 2008.
3rd October 2008
Edinburgh's Napier University Student Exhibits Work as Part of Blackburn's Festival of Contemporary Asian Art
Work by Melanie Sangwine, a BA3 Photography, Film and Imaging student, can be seen in the group exhibition `Hide and Seek' at Blackburn's Visitor Centre. The exhibition runs from 3 October to 7 December 2008 and is part of Blackburn's Festival of Contemporary Asian Art.
18th August 2008
Edinburgh's Napier University Screen Academy Student in Venice Film Competition
Edinburgh's Napier University and Screen Academy Scotland student, Catriona MacInnes’ first film "I’m in away from here" is one of only two British films in competition at the prestigious Venice Film Festival which opens on the 27 August. The film will be competing for one of three prizes which will be awarded by an international jury. Last year’s winner was from the UK – Paddy Considine’s ‘Dog Altogether’.
Catriona – who has a background in theatre and originally came to Edinburgh's Napier University to study for an MA in Screenwriting – wrote, produced and directed the 22 minute film for the Masters of Fine Art degree in Advanced Film Practice. "I’m in away from here" was shot in Leith and Portobello and features a mix of professional and non-professional actors in a story of friendship and the overcoming of personal and social barriers.
Screen Academy Scotland, Director Robin MacPherson, said: "To have a film in competition in Venice is a great achievement for any film maker but to do it with your very first short film is just fantastic. We are very proud of Catriona and her team and delighted that in only the third year of its existence, the Screen Academy Scotland has proven it can find and nurture Scotland’s film making talent to this level of international success."
2nd July 2008
Edinburgh's Napier University film students compete for awards at Edinburgh International Film Festival
This year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival selected and screened an impressive number of films by Napier film students and ex-students, some of which were short-listed for awards.
Third year film students, Julian Schwanitz, Niina Topp and Andrew Steen, had their collaborative film, Niddrie Bricks, short-listed for the Scottish Short Documentary Award. In this beautifully shot film, three brothers recall their childhood in Niddrie, an infamous Edinburgh council estate that diggers are about to pull down.
Nominated for the same award was Karelian Cowgirls (Oudoille Oville), a documentary directed by film graduate Minttu Mantynen, who is an accomplished cinematographer in Scotland.
Another film graduate Benjamin Kracun’s Plane Days, a film about plane-spotters in Heathrow, was shown alongside an international selection of documentaries in the Document Shorts showcase. Benjamin was also director of photography for One in Four, a short fiction film screened in the UK Shorts showcase and short-listed for the Best British Short Film Award. Another Best British Short Film Award nominee was Dead Dog, a compelling film about a man whose dog goes missing, by the film graduate Edward Jeffreys, a talented writer and director to be watched out for.
Final year photography student Aaron Shrimpton’s music video Astronaut, featuring Yila ft Scroobius Pip, was shown as part of the Mirrorball: Britannia Rules showcase. The video was also in competition for the Best British Music Video award.
This year’s selection of short documentaries, fiction films and music videos at EIFF once again provided a tantalizing glimpse into the exciting talent that continues to emerge every year from the University’s inspiring film and photography programme.
18th June 2008
Edinburgh's Napier University Receives £5,000 Bursary from Publishing Training Centre
Edinburgh's Napier University has been awarded one of four bursaries by The Publishing Training Centre (PTC).
The PTC is an educational charity dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in publishing. PTC is awarding the four bursaries, each worth £5,000, to students from Black or Minority Ethnic (BME) backgrounds studying for publishing Masters degrees at four UK universities: Edinburgh's Napier University, City University London, Oxford Brookes and UCL.
John Whitley, Chief Executive of the PTC, says: “BME employees are under-represented in UK publishing. Unless we address this there is a real danger that our publishing output will fail to represent the richness of our diverse cultural heritage and increasingly broad mixture of races and religious groupings now resident in our islands. Intensive efforts from many quarters, including Arts Council England, London College of Communication and DIPNet, the Diversity in Publishing Network and The PTC have begun to address this issue, but there is more to be achieved.”
According to the 2007 Diversity in Publishing report produced by Book Marketing Ltd, just 7.7% of the workforce comes from BME backgrounds.
Dr Caroline Copeland, Programme Leader of MSc Publishing at Edinburgh's Napier University, said: “We are delighted to have been awarded this prestigious bursary and are looking forward to receiving applications from suitable candidates for the bursary.”
The PTC has been supporting the Arts Council England (ACE) to improve the ethnic diversity of publishing employment by providing free training for all recruits placed through the ACE Scheme into UK publishing houses.
Interested candidates must already have been offered a place on a qualifying course and should then make contact with the appropriate individual, via Caroline Copeland.
10th June 2008
Highland Journey In the spirit of Edwin Muir
During 2006, Robin Gillanders made an extended journey around the Scottish Highlands inspired by writer Edwin Muir’s “Scottish Journey”, of 1934. Gillanders made his Journey, not as a writer, but as a photographer. He has diverted, not just from Muir’s route, but from his remit, by commenting on some of the major contemporary issues facing these remote areas. His journey took a great deal longer than Muir’s. It seems paradoxical, but photography is a slower process than writing. The writer records their thoughts and impressions, sometimes long after the experience, as Muir did, whereas the photographer has to photograph what is there. You can’t photograph a thought. Subjects have to be contacted and arrangements made; research in situ has to be carried out and due attention has to be paid to The Light. There’s a great deal of enforced inactivity involved in photography.
This exhibition is a selection from the 60 photographs made over a period of 90 days. They have been made with a 5x4 camera, the film being processed in the converted shower of a campervan purchased specially for the journey.
The exhibition will tour initially to Highland Council galleries:
Iona gallery, Kingussie 14th June - 12th July
Inverness Art gallery and Museum 19th July - 16th August
Swanson Gallery Thurso 27th September - 25th Oct
St Fergus gallery Wick 1st Nov - 29th November
This project has been supported by the Scottish Arts Council, Hi-Arts and Napier University.
9th June 2008
Battle of the Bands
The Edinburgh band ‘We See Lights’ has just won BT’s UK-wide Battle of the Bands. Their prize is to play at the world-famous Isle of Wight festival this coming weekend. They are on the bill with The Police, James, Starsailor and The Kooks. Two of the band members, Ciaran McGuigan and Craig Ross, are graduates of the BA (Hons) Popular Music programme at Napier University. Visit Isle of Wight festival for more information.
Bill Ranatunga has won the CIPR Student of the Year Award
We are very pleased to announce that Bill Ranatunga has recently won the prestigious CIPR (Chartered Institute of Public Relations) student of the year award. Bill overcame his competitors by impressing the judges with his many accomplishments such as his promotion of CIPR student membership, his contributions to articles for Profile and Behind the Spin magazine, and his organization of a ‘Students into Industry’ event.
You can find further information at All Media Scotland.
8th June 2008
A Website for Robert Louis Stevenson
Linda Dryden, Director of the Centre for Literature and Writing (CLAW), has been awarded £34,000 by the Carnegie Trust to create a website that will celebrate the life and works of Robert Louis Stevenson. This site will offer a comprehensive annotated bibliography, provide research resources and schools’ teaching materials, and generally raise the profile of RLS at an international level. Based at Edinburgh Napier University, the website will effectively bring Stevenson back home to Edinburgh and to Scotland, while at the same time projecting his reputation out to the wider world. The proposal involves Edinburgh's Napier University, Stirling and Edinburgh Universities in the development process, and in the longer run will offer well-researched resources and information for scholars and students in Scottish institutions and across the world. The website team will draw on the expertise and advice of the leading international Stevenson scholars, notably Professor Barry Menikoff, University of Hawaii, Dr Roger Swearingen, Professor Stephen Arata, University of Virginia, and Dr Jenni Calder. This is an exciting new development in the School of Creative Industries and is further evidence of our growing reputation in the field of English and related disciplines.