The final push

All go for the degree show, everything is coming together nicely, the examiners have finished marking our work so we have the studio back for the final finishing touches.

The all important bar is under construction, along with a stage and many other little odds and ends are being tidied up.

We all have presentations for the Kennet Prize tomorrow and then as of 6pm the show is open! Private viewings are on Thursday and Friday evening and then it is open to the public for a week. So make sure you come along and check out what all this hard work has been about.

Pictures of the show to follow as it happens and also look out for a couple of events during the week.

J

All go for the degreeshow

Its been a while since our last post.

Lots has happened. The degree show build is well underway and we are about to hand in monday so are all very busy at the moment. A more detailed post to come  after mon but here is a photo of the build until then.

J

Presentation Day!

Today is officially the last day of teaching at the art school before the Easter break and as a result this means the dreaded presentations. Split into to 4 groups (2 before lunch, 2 after) we each take 15 minute turns telling the panel of 5 tutors what exactly we’ve been doing for the last 6 months. As each group finishes and filters back into the studio you can generally tell by their expressions just how well its went…

In less degree shattering news, Google maps ‘street view’ has been updated to incorporate almost every town in the UK (except Huntly but including How Beg. go figure) giving us another perfect opportunity to procrastinate, checking out everyone’s homes all whilst secretly judging them.

And finally I’m sure you’ve all been wondering how the mighty ‘Yang Team’ have been getting on (if anyone actually reads this apart from my mum and I’ve already told her). Well in the last 2 weeks we’ve won one (8-5, capped off with a goal from yours truly, a rare rare sight in the modern game) and lost one (9-4). So with our season precariously balanced on won 3, lost 3, with only one more game left in our university careers, it would be nice to finish in the black. We can but dream!

Mon’ the Yang

G

A Very Hapry Day

First and foremost, Happy Birthday Barry! He has received some lovely cards but one stands out from all the rest, mainly due to the choir of giggles that follows it wherever it goes. The card was hand made by tidy fullback Graeme and web guru Nils. What makes this card so special you ask? With the Dunfermline logo and a number of spelling errors it has captured Graeme’s essence forever.

The Media and Publication team had a meeting with Neil McGuire from VisCom today. It was great to get an outsiders view on the work the group has done so far and will hopefully result in a strong link between the two departments, through continuing to work together on the ever growing multitude of degree show tasks. I’m also feeling that it ties in very neatly with our theme of creative networks.

Sam Smith and Andrew Morrison are busy preparing to make their first million, well if all goes to plan! They’re currently practicing their presentation for the next stage of the SIE competition in front of a number of fellow classmates. And Ian is busy working on the graphics for his presentation.

Finally, Jamie Williams has been given the unusual task of writing an article for the publication “Ambulance Today”. Jamie’s final year brief is to redesign the ambulance chair made for tackling stair cases. Good luck and I look forward to seeing it on the BBC’s “Have I Got News for You” missing words round.

The world of web design

A new week is upon us and with each passing week we draw closer to exams, final deadlines, presentations and the end of our university life but most importantly of all (at least as far as this blog is concerned) the Degree Show draws nearer…

I myself have been drafted into the web design team, who today have been cracking on with deciding on the aims, styles and objective of the site whilst also drawing up a lovely little site map, ready to meet up with the design team to make sure we’re all pulling in the same direction, or to at least make sure we are all corresponding vectors making up the appropriate resultant (little bit of Engineering chat for you there).

In other studio news most of the boys are hoping the snow stays off for at least another day, unlike last Wednesday when a day long shower resulted in the cancellation of the PDE football team’s weekly fixture. the “Yang team’s” (hey, I didn’t name them!) current form sits at played four, lost two, won two, including a thumping 25-3 win in our last match, with debutante Kev pitching in with ten goals, one behind my current total of 11 which has taken me four season to amass. Hopefully we can build on this result in our remaining fixtures as we make a late push for the title.

Another exciting revelation this week is that we’ve finally uploaded the video I talked about in my first ever blog which is now available to enjoy on our you tube channel.

G

A busy Friday for the studio

Lots of degree show activity this Friday, we’ve been busy working on the logo and had a pin up for the rest of the class to let us know what they think.

Check out the photos on our flickr page and also check out this video that Nils put together:

Website

Just a quick post to proclaim the unveiling of our brand new webstie which went online today. Find us at www.pdedegreeshow.com and remember to keep checking back for regular updates on our progress.

Congratulations

It’s been a busy few weeks for us PDEr’s with several of us excelling above the norm;

Gavin Brown, James Vale, Sam Smith, Andrew Morrison and Ian Guy all qualified for the national, SIE new ideas competition with Sam and Andrew also winning the 20 second pitch competition. So well done to all. Sam Smith was also accepted into Cambridge this week and will next year be studying Industrial systems manufacturer and management, so another congratulations and good luck to him.

Also planning her future is Jenni Milne who this week became the first ever undergraduate to be interviewed for the ‘leaders in global operations’ course at MIT. A huge achievement and we’ve all got our fingers crossed on the result.

In less dramatic studio news everyone is slowly warming up again after the half term, long weekend, with most of us staring at computers waiting for their second (or in some cases third or fourth) wind to carry them through the afternoon. Perhaps destiny’s child will help.

G

Creative connections and networks

Flight paths

The votes were counted and it has been decided that this years theme for the show will be creative connections.

PDE has been around for many years and has numerous connections worldwide. The course has so many interesting connections from different backgrounds, be it with engineers at the university, product designers opposite us, alumni in practices all over the world or manufacturers. We thought it would be interesting to see where our network stretches.

The point behind the theme is a point of inspiration, and we will try and explore our creative connections graphically.

Before moving on with the design, we decided it was important to figure out who our target audience is. A couple of the groups have now sat down to discuss this and come up with some specific aims for the show along with trying to understand what our audiences needs are.

Now it is time to design a logo, and the publications team have just under 2 weeks to come up with some ideas for the class to vote on, so lots of work to be done.

There is a nice busy atmosphere in the studio today, 4th year Meng are frantically working away on a video prototype project whilst the rest of us are hard at work preparing for a presentation tomorrow. Its all made a bit more bearable, by the fact that sun is flooding into the studio keeping us all in good spirits.

Logo ideas

J

A Busy Friday

A bustling studio, as it’s the big vote! Today we decide a theme for our degree show. The Publications and Media team have made up some mood boards which are hanging up in studio with a ballot box underneath. The result will be announced on Monday, allowing P&M, and Website to crack on with graphics.

The PR team are also on the move, collecting project descriptions of no more than 50 words of everyone. I’m surrounded by wrinkled noses and confused expressions, it’s turning out to be a tougher job than expected to condense down over five months of work into 50 words.

As a reward to myself for finishing the set I had a wander round, there was some intense project chat happening along with model making and testing. On a lighter note I witnessed the delivery of two sofas, some coffee tables and cushions for the studio corner. As always there was a lot of headphone action on the go. Quite an eclectic mix including: Arab Strap, The Kinks, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Kings of Leon, Juno OST, Joe Bonamassa, Delphic, Alice in Chains and Things to be Frickled: Remixes Apparat. A range of the new and the old and I think it sets the tone of the studio fittingly.  Then stumbled upon a picture of Obama with four eyes and two mouths…very random.

H