 |
 |
 |
 |
|
COVENTRY
UNIVERSITY B.A. DEGREE SHOW. SUMMER-1999
Over 60 students had the opportunity to display their final year projects for the Industrial Products and Transport Design Degree courses end of the year show, held at the Coventry City football ground.
There was a wide range of quality and presentation on display. This ranged from naive perspectives (with stuck on typewritten notes) to the spectacular. It was encouraging to see the increasing use of computer generated modelling and graphic work as students become more aware of the use of ALIAS and other systems now commonplace in larger studios.
You could see that a dozen or so graduates should be guaranteed jobs with major studios, and dozen others with other smaller design houses. But this then leaves some questions over the remainder. Nobody was assured of a job at the start of the course. Their own dedication and efforts can be their only guarantees - but I am concerned about so many 'graduate' designers struggling to make it in their 'dream' profession. I was encouraged by a couple of enterprising work experience sessions with more diverse engineering and prototyping companies, and in a way it would be good to see lessons learnt of 'good' design feeding through, further down the 'supplier' chain.
Projects/Students of Note
James Claydon's Tsunami express cruiser/yacht was a perfect execution of quality, thoroughness, style and originality, with a beautiful model to support.
Chetan Chohan's interior, bike and shoe designs exhibited flare and a superb depth of colour, sculptural and graphic quality in his presentation work.
Simon Hodister's weird and wonderful 'Arabic off roader' was bold, original and supported by a wash of theme renderings and images showing true confidence in his own abilities.
Mark Fetherston proved that although everyone tries to do a sportscar, you have to be very good to make it look so good first time. He succeeded.
Andreas Nilsson, was obviously inspired by his placement at Volvo and his final family vehicle design showed that he had an excellent grasp of the character and feel that is Volvo, of tomorrow.
I was also very impressed by Mujibur Jaigirdar 'alienesque' ride simulator, Carl Gotham's lightweight open sportscar, Jonathan Strong's Bentley with his crisp Wolfsburg rendering style, Scott Herrings aerial rescue camera, Brendan Oliver's ski-bike, Jonathan Woodhead surf rescue craft and Daniel Grimms' beautiful model of his interpretation of a 40m 'yacht'.
Overall the show exhibited flair and enthusiasm and I hope that there are enough employees out there to seize the opportunity of honing the raw talent, to enhance design and future product, and prove that the UK still produces the best design graduates in the world.
COVENTRY UNIVERSITY M.A. AUTOMOTIVE DESIGN SHOW. OCTOBER 1999
Unlike the summer's BA Degree Show, the Master students had their final work presentations held at the 'Lanchester Gallery' in the main 'Art and Design' block of the University itself. This resulted in a far more 'comfortable' environment to be able to view and judge the 13 students' work comparably.
Considering that the MA Course exists to hone the design students skills, (similar to the RCA course) it could honestly be said that only a couple of the students really surpassed the quality of some of the summer's BA Show's work.
The best Design, Model and Presentation of the show, was by Richard Gilmartin. His study entitled Equilibrium achieved the classic style, graphic and proportions of a (British) luxury vehicle. Despite the translucent rear quarter fender panel and an odd grille design, he deserved the judging panel's £500 prize for 'Best in Show'.
Coming a close second, in my view, was another luxury car by the French student, J F Rob Nuboer. His La Vision de Voisin was a beautifully prepared model, which featured interesting forms and textures, including a 'suitcase' rear trunk and fine lamp and grille detailing.
Another design study for a 'resurrected' French manufacturer was by Thomas Ashton. His Panhard was clean and a well executed interpretation, that featured the best elements of the classic marque.
Finally, away from the limousine culture that seemed to be this year's students vogue, two further designs are worthy of mention. The cheeky, fun, soft and sharp Equilibrium small city car by Korean Hwang Sung Jin and the tidy, spiritual SEAT monospace Vigo by James Searle.
Steve Harper
Over 60 students had the opportunity to display their final year projects for the Industrial Products and Transport Design Degree courses end of the year show, held at the Coventry City football ground.
There was a wide range of quality and presentation on display. This ranged from naive perspectives (with stuck on typewritten notes) to the spectacular. It was encouraging to see the increasing use of computer generated modelling and graphic work as students become more aware of the use of ALIAS and other systems now commonplace in larger studios.
You could see that a dozen or so graduates should be guaranteed jobs with major studios, and dozen others with other smaller design houses. But this then leaves some questions over the remainder. Nobody was assured of a job at the start of the course. Their own dedication and efforts can be their only guarantees - but I am concerned about so many 'graduate' designers struggling to make it in their 'dream' profession. I was encouraged by a couple of enterprising work experience sessions with more diverse engineering and prototyping companies, and in a way it would be good to see lessons learnt of 'good' design feeding through, further down the 'supplier' chain.
Projects/Students of Note
James Claydon's Tsunami express cruiser/yacht was a perfect execution of quality, thoroughness, style and originality, with a beautiful model to support.
Chetan Chohan's interior, bike and shoe designs exhibited flare and a superb depth of colour, sculptural and graphic quality in his presentation work.
Simon Hodister's weird and wonderful 'Arabic off roader' was bold, original and supported by a wash of theme renderings and images showing true confidence in his own abilities.
Mark Fetherston proved that although everyone tries to do a sportscar, you have to be very good to make it look so good first time. He succeeded.
Andreas Nilsson, was obviously inspired by his placement at Volvo and his final family vehicle design showed that he had an excellent grasp of the character and feel that is Volvo, of tomorrow.
I was also very impressed by Mujibur Jaigirdar 'alienesque' ride simulator, Carl Gotham's lightweight open sportscar, Jonathan Strong's Bentley with his crisp Wolfsburg rendering style, Scott Herrings aerial rescue camera, Brendan Oliver's ski-bike, Jonathan Woodhead surf rescue craft and Daniel Grimms' beautiful model of his interpretation of a 40m 'yacht'.
Overall the show exhibited flair and enthusiasm and I hope that there are enough employees out there to seize the opportunity of honing the raw talent, to enhance design and future product, and prove that the UK still produces the best design graduates in the world.
COVENTRY UNIVERSITY M.A. AUTOMOTIVE DESIGN SHOW. OCTOBER 1999
Unlike the summer's BA Degree Show, the Master students had their final work presentations held at the 'Lanchester Gallery' in the main 'Art and Design' block of the University itself. This resulted in a far more 'comfortable' environment to be able to view and judge the 13 students' work comparably.
Considering that the MA Course exists to hone the design students skills, (similar to the RCA course) it could honestly be said that only a couple of the students really surpassed the quality of some of the summer's BA Show's work.
The best Design, Model and Presentation of the show, was by Richard Gilmartin. His study entitled Equilibrium achieved the classic style, graphic and proportions of a (British) luxury vehicle. Despite the translucent rear quarter fender panel and an odd grille design, he deserved the judging panel's £500 prize for 'Best in Show'.
Coming a close second, in my view, was another luxury car by the French student, J F Rob Nuboer. His La Vision de Voisin was a beautifully prepared model, which featured interesting forms and textures, including a 'suitcase' rear trunk and fine lamp and grille detailing.
Another design study for a 'resurrected' French manufacturer was by Thomas Ashton. His Panhard was clean and a well executed interpretation, that featured the best elements of the classic marque.
Finally, away from the limousine culture that seemed to be this year's students vogue, two further designs are worthy of mention. The cheeky, fun, soft and sharp Equilibrium small city car by Korean Hwang Sung Jin and the tidy, spiritual SEAT monospace Vigo by James Searle.
Steve Harper
