Changsha / Coventry 2014

The exchange programme ended a few weeks ago, but the learning did not. Our chinese friends keep on updating us with their latest projects and the process they undertake for each brief through social media. It’s always good to learn from other artists and get inspired especially that the way they work and approach briefs are totally different than ours.

We were all fascinated by the handmade artworks; it reminded of all the workshops we have in uni which I haven’t used  since Foundation.

After a lecture, we did exercise which is “Generating ideas”. Our task is to "create a consistent branding scheme for a company / organization / movement / party / social group / association / sports team / or whatever you choose." We divided three groups to compete each other and one top team was voted. After one hour serious thought and heated discussion, every team generated an idea about this task. We sat down in a circle and gave a brief description of each idea. At last we voted a top team and awarded them. We all think this is a very good way to get a good idea in a short time. We would like to thank Phil and Lisa for their good advices.

In the 3D software class, the teacher first explain to us the usefulness of this software, followed by our own hand-painted a picture and teach us step-by-step method of operation in the computer room of the software. In class we have through their own practice, step by step, witness his final product, so that they are more interested to delve into. Our future learning is also very useful.

Last week, Phil took us to visit Birmingham. The city saw a perfect blend of history and industry, which impressed me most is its art museum and see the different styles and different regions of the painting and sculpture art. Although more experience to the performance of a different way, the language is not the same, but the beauty is the same. I think design is like this.

I think those phrases are very important for students who major in art and design. I will remember these words forever.

I always observe everything in our trips, especially some details which are ignored by people. I found that there are many designs that are very human friendly. I saw a log on the tree and guess that it maybe a number or a log for the tree. And the height of a lock is suitable for a short person. The sign on the wall of the museum is very useful. This kind of design reminds me that we should care about people in design anytime and anywhere.

We visited Oxford city and saw lots of new things in there. These hand-painted posters had attracted the eyes of us. We really admired the painter for his or her excellent artistic capacity in hand painting. We feel we should work even harder in hand painting. It is very important for a student who major in visual communication design.

By Qing He

The seminar is the main method of our exchanging project. The topic of this seminar is “Static, Moving, Interactive – Poster design” We had held many seminars in two countries. As far as I know, Seminar is a very new way to our education. Now indoctrination in education still is influencing Chinese education. Our traditional cramming method of teaching ignores student essence status. In this project, our interesting of learning had a greater improvement. In every seminar, Phil and Lisa prepare materials for students. We talked, thought about these materials and got many good ideas in every seminar. We think seminar is a very good way to us. We should apply it in our futures education.

We really enjoyed our print class and animation class in Coventry University. There is lots of fun in this kind of practical class. In print class, every student experiment the whole print process by themselves. We all think that Coventry University pays much more attention in the student’s practical ability, especially in the sketch drawing. This is very important for a student who learns art and design, so we think our university should improve our facilities to motivate the student’s learning interest.

This was an example of the shopping centre's social media marketing. They ran a competition to see which photo gained the most interactions on their social network page.

Yesterday we were visited Compton Verney .On the Compton verney I found many interesting things in the Museum,There are a lot of sculptures, paintings, exhibits,This is bronze, late shang dynasty(about 1550-1050BC):wine wessel and cover,fangjia.I like its ornamentation,so I drew down this pattern on book. I hope i can use it to my design  #coventry2014 China WENGQINYUE

This week, we went to Stratford-upon-Avon for visit, to places associated with William Shakespeare on the day of his 450th birthday.

By Qing He