NC Art and Design Students Design New Installation for Cnoc Soilleir.
The students on the NC Art and Design course had an exciting real-world opportunity for their Graphics Unit, which forms part of the Digital Media Unit on the NC. The four students created and submitted vibrant and well-researched design proposals and one was selected to be used for the permanent installation in the Cnoc Soilleir building.
The Brief :
- The unit provides and exciting opportunity for your design work to be applied to a real-world setting. For this project you will be making a design proposal for the walls of Cnoc Soilleir in south Uist, and the project team would like a creative, and fitting design that represents the names. The designs will be permanently installed on the corridor walls.
- You will each put forward a series of designs for the project and the Cnoc Soilleir team will sect one to be used. You will be focussing on the research and creative aspect of the design process, in the final stage the successful design will be processed by a professional graphic designer.
- Prior to the introduction of the project to the students the names of the individual rooms had been established through the work of the Ceòlas team with primary school children from both Daliburgh and Iochdar Schools in November and December 2021
- Cnoc Soilleir Ltd would like to thank all the students for their enthusiasm and imaginative and considered responses to the brief.
Students visited Lorraine Burke at Heb Graphics in Lochmaddy to discuss the design process for making an eye catching wall vinyl. Lorraine showed them around her facility and the amazing choice of colours for the final design.
The Students then used a combination of traditional drawing (felt tips, pencils and pens), along with digital photography and visual research. They began to put together their design ideas then worked on Adobe CC software to make their designs.
The students were taken for a site visit to the Cnoc Soilleir building. Hard hats and hi-vis on! This allowed the students to visualize the designs and work out the requirements of the space.
All of the students produced a very high standard of work, taking inspiration from cartography, sound, and ordinance survey maps. They considered colour, impact in the space and the Gaelic which was to be used for the room names.
After careful deliberation, the final design by Nisha Hallberg was selected. Below Nisha shared her design concept:
"In response to the Cnoc Sollier brief I wanted to create signage that was welcoming, accessible and modern reflecting the innovative architecture of the building as well as the rich Gaelic culture, history and landscape of Uist.
My design was inspired by Art Nouveau and its use of floral motifs and natural forms. I wanted it to be welcoming and accessible to all. I tried to do this through my use of warm local colours, the balance of positive and negative space, and readability – through using clear sans serif font and placing text in the middle of the space.
Each layer is made from the silhouette of a Uist flower and foliage. The process of selecting each colour from its original image was more important than the shade itself. I wanted to focus on bold shapes and colour rather than detail – using harmonious shades that are warm, inviting and distinctive. It is representational but can also be seen as abstract, leaving its meaning up to interpretation.
I have also made a variation with a flag iris sitting on top. In this concept each layer of the design represents a room and the flower of said layer is overlayed. This does not prioritise the Gaelic room name but gives people an alternative to differentiate the rooms by - which perhaps doesn’t meet the core ethos of the building. However, I felt it important to include it as another possibility to varying the order of colours for each room."
Find out more about studying art at Lews Castle College UHI - Art - Lews Castle College UHI
Find out more about Cnoc Soilleir here - Cnoc Soilleir – Co-iomairt le lèirsinn cho-roinnte | A joint venture with a shared vision