BDes Graphic Design
There are a remarkable range of Graphic Design projects, from a pub designed to get men talking about fertility issues and post-partum depression, to resource kits for the 1 in 5 people in the UK living with chronic pain.
There were two awards presented on launch night, the first of which was the StudioLR Gutsy Graduate Awards, judged by Edinburgh-based Creative Agency StudioLR, presented to Katie Timmins for her project ‘Gaze Deep’ - an immersive experience, using mirrored projection and sound to place the individual in their own personal bubble, and providing them with two perspectives - what the public see vs what the participant reads. The project aims to get its audience to reflect on how outward appearances, like scars and tattoos are perceived by society. Along with the award, Katie received a cash prize and a placement opportunity with the agency. 
Best in Show was awarded to Bryony Spooner, who’s project aimed to reform sex education in Scottish secondary schools. Lack of quality sex education can result in a dangerous and confusing guessing game in later life, so this project posits a solution in the form of a new, hypothetical teaching role called WOQUE; Wellbeing, Open, Qualified Educator. Bryony used traditional classroom equipment with stylized embellishments to get the message across – a blackboard with a flowchart, an embroidered pencil case, pencils, and an engraved school desk.
BDes Product Design
Our BDes in Product Design covers a very wide range of d
esign activity and innovation from commercial 3D objects to conceptual design interventions in spaces and communication, and this year was no exception.
Best in Show was judged by Edinburgh Napier’s own Head of Enterprise Nick Fannon, from the Bright Red Triangle enterprise hub. Jasmine Nicholson took the award for her sustainable mattress Mymo. After walking past an abandoned mattress on her road in Edinburgh, Jasmine found out the shocking fact that seven million mattresses go to landfill in the UK each year, and decided to try and engineer a solution – a modular mattress that can be deconstructed to separate materials for recycling when its life span is over.
BA Photography
The expansive range of work in this year’s photography exhibition covers topics from gender fluidity to what it means to live in Scotland post-Brexit, and this was reflected in the three awards give out on launch night. Bobby Gavin from Wex Photo Video judged the projects, but the awards were presented by Programme Leader Lei Cox.
The two Wex Photo Video Awards, including a cash prize, were awarded to Libby Whyte and Innes Reid. Libby’s deeply personal project, entitled “Generational Journeys Through a Lens” is an ongoing project celebrating the use of a family inherited film camera.Libby created her own experience and visualisations, and mixed them together with existing photos to give the illusion of creating a project together as grandfather and granddaughter. 
Innes’s project, God Bless This Acid House explores rave subculture and how the visuals of the movement, including the fashion, help to build its identity, and how that has translated across the decades.
In the final award of the night, best in show for photography was presented to Charlotte Cullen, for her retro-inspired shoots, reimagined for a contemporary age. The photography is primarily film-based, thereby embodying the current, resurgent trends in analogue technology, and Charlotte particularly relished getting the opportunity to act as Creative Director on her own shoots, working with models and stylists.
BDes Interior & Spatial Design
Among this year’s Interior & Spatial Design graduating cohort, we saw many deeply personal and striking projects on display on launch night.
Best in show was judged by Jaco Justice, founder and creative director of Ja!Coco!, an interior design agency in Edinburgh, and awarded to Anna Bowery for her design of a community boxing gym for young people at The Engine Works in Maryhill, Glasgow. The space is designed around three stages of focus for young people, Stage 1 being vulnerability, stage 2 turning point, and stage 3 reflection, all directed towards taking an informal and engaging approach to youth work.
MA Design Suite 
The Masters Design programmes at Edinburgh Napier cover a range of specialist areas, including Lighting Design, Motion Graphics, Heritage & Exhibition Design, Design for Interactive Art Exhibitions and Product Design & Making.
The best in show was selected from across all of these programmes by Stephen McConnachie, Co-founder and Creative Director of Double Take Projections, an Edinburgh-based visual creative agency. The award went to Maria Morales Die, for The Lanzarote Souvenir Project, through which she aims to elevate the concept of the souvenir through design, and explore its the relations with local identity, symbols and with the traveller's identity. All of this is with the goal of supporting local economies of touristic destinations after the pandemic.
MSc Creative Advertising
Our Creative Advertising course is the most successful in Scotland, exemplified by our judges this year, successful industry professionals who are also alumni of the course. Valerie O'Connor, who works as a Copywriter at Edinburgh-based agency The Union, and Maxime Rommes, Art Director at The Leith Agency, awarded best in show to Benji Brown and Danny Sutherland for their campaign for WWF, ‘Lumberjerk’.
Challenged with raising awareness of deforestation, their campaign was based around the idea that people don’t care about issues which don’t affect them, so the idea was to bring the issue of deforestation to people’s front doors. They devised experiential advertising to put the issue into the real world - imagine waking up to your sunflower heads snipped, your local park taped off and due to be destroyed, or your garden tree with a ‘Caution: Tree Cutting in Progress’ sign nailed onto it, with Lumberjerk branding. They then worked on a skit show, filming people’s reactions to the creative in-situ.