Wow! Excelia Digital School is bursting with talent!
When lockdown was announced, they were on the starting blocks for the launch of the 1st Edition of AND, which should have opened on 20th March: meetings and discussions around the theme of Design, with an exhibition due to start on 16th March, and workshops and lectures led by industry professionals. An event that was to be held at Excelia, for which Year 3 students had the task of putting into practice everything they had learned in their previous years: creation of the logo, poster, programme, website, use of social networks, video production, etc. For João Garcia, Teacher of Visual Culture, Graphic Designer, and Manager of the graphic design studio Antichambre, and for Gonzalo Garzo Fernández, Excelia Digital School's Pedagogy Coordinator, the main reason for this project was to give people the opportunity to get to know the School as well as contributing to the creation of a real professional network for this incredibly busy year group.
As for Bachelor in Web Design 1st year students, they've been "lost in music", creating a record sleeve for a Chantier des Francos compilation, a support initiative for artists and the music industry, as well as designing a poster for the MM Festival, which is scheduled to take place in La Rochelle from 7th - 11th October 2020. The constraining guideline given for the first project was to convey several musical styles in a single image, and for the second project, the festival of baroque and experimental music, they were asked to portray neither musical instruments nor musicians!
Practical projects that not only allow our students to experience the city through its cultural events, and to discover a musical genre outside of their usual repertoire, but whose interest, above all, lies in encouraging students to be curious, to venture out, and to make contact with people looking for graphic and web design services... In short, once again, it's all about developing your network!
All the elements have been carefully thought through and brought together, so that students really understand the job of graphic designer... from the anguish of that blank page to the transformation of one's feelings into images, including the necessity of coming up with several different ideas. For each of these projects, in addition to knowledge of essential modern and historical sources, benchmarking graphic inspiration is essential because "knowing how to dissect images means learning how to create them" explains João Garcia, who emphasises the importance of "moving away from standard templates in order to develop one's own graphic style." And of course, students then need to be able to explain and talk about their creations, selecting just one or two to present to their audience. In fact, why don't we create a small gallery, for the general public outside Excelia, to regularly show the work of our prolific students? The Excelia Digital School teaching team is seriously thinking about it...
Illustration : Claire Bourgoin BWD1.
