30TH APR 2024
Ships Ahoy! Graphic Design at Gloucester Tall Ships Festival
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Ships ahoy! Grab your treasure maps and get searching for some abso-loot-ley amazing artwork.
If you’re heading to Gloucester’s Tall Ships Festival or the Gloucester Shanty Festival next month, keep an eye out for some pirate-themed fun spread out around the city.
Our Graphics team has successfully secured a partnership with Gloucester BID and designed some wonderful interactive artwork for a family-fun trail this May.
Jess Colley and Ellie Toy, lecturers in Graphic Design, have led on the exciting project. Together they have created designs for 12 different window displays across Gloucester. The family-friendly designs were created for a fun day out with kids, featuring some interactive elements and photo opportunities. Wanting the trail to fully appeal to families, the designs are inspired by children’s illustration books with a beautiful ‘wonky and rustic’ style.
Ranging from giant crabs, octopus, and parrots to seaweed, ships and a 6ft shark (and a chest full of treasure thrown in for good measure) there’s a lot to look out for!
Environmentally Friendly Artwork
To stop wastage, the artwork has all been created using recycled cardboard. Jess said:
“We wanted it to be environmentally friendly as well, the impact on the environment is important – there’s no waste, and we’re recycling. Local supermarkets and businesses have been kind enough to donate cardboard and it’s been a bit of a family effort gathering it all.”
They’ve also had lots of opportunity to link with the local community and meet the business owners whose windows will be hosting the artwork. They’ve been out and about visiting the spaces and then thoughtfully putting together designs to work with the spaces available.
“It’s been nice going in and meeting the people. They’ve been really lovely and it’s great to work with the community more. We’re hoping to continue doing more work with Gloucester BID and seeing how we can involve our students in the future.”
As part of the process, Jess and Ellie had to put together a proposal and pitch their ideas alongside other artists before finding out their plans had been chosen by Gloucester BID.
“Putting together the proposal and going through that process has proven to our students that we can do it too. We’ve used it as a learning experience, talking to our students about the process and putting together a proposal for big project like this. It’s been good for us to have a creative challenge too!”
Want to check out the trail? Visit Gloucester this May half term!
As well as the pirate themed trail, Jess and Ellie worked with their students to produce a colouring book for Gloucester BID. Jess Colley designed the front cover, and some of our Level 3 Graphic Design students have seen their designs featured in the pages. The book is due to be released soon.
Want to know more about our Graphic Design courses?
Find them here 
