Collect Primary Research

Primary research is key to developing a unique and original idea. You need to look around your world with new eyes, look at the everyday objects, tickets and labels and appreciate their beauty and design. Find the things that inspire you in the everyday, try to look at things from different angles and viewpoints, focus in on smaller areas.Collect things, collect everything that inspires you. Keep your collections somewhere safe, keep them in a folder, pin them on your studio wall surround yourself with inspiration!

The computer is a valuable tool but looking only at others work will hinder your creativity, you need to get out and explore the world around you. By looking to primary sources you will be able to develop original and imaginative ideas.

Look and record the inspiration all around you

1.      Take photographs
2.      Draw from observation
3.      Keep an inspiration file or box

Continually look around you for inspiration, even if something isn’t directly relevant now it may spark an idea later on down the line. When your stuck for ideas or have a creative block go back to your inspiration folder or box and see what you have….you’ll be surprised how you can still be inspired by something you collected months even years ago.

If we could offer you some valuable research advise it would be COLLECT PRIMARY RESEARCH



Rebekah's Work Space

Kelly's Inspiration Cabinet 





Stand Out From The Crowd

So it’s that time of year again when most of you are embarking on your final major project (FMP) which in student terms means ‘the most important project of college’. This is your time to shine, but how do you do that?

Firstly, you need to choose a theme that will keep you inspired and interested from now until June. You need to think outside the box, think beyond the obvious and choose something that’s not been done time and time again. Be original think of something new or turn something old on its head! Finally, you need to work hard, postpone the social life, be in college before 9am and after 4pm, get familiar with the library and get stuck in in the workshops!

A shark in a tank is no longer a shock, an unmade bed doesn’t make you look twice but at some point in the past this was new, this was shocking. These things made Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin stand out from the crowd. Don’t get lost in between the rest stand out from the crowd, work hard and most of all make sure this is the best project you have done so far!

So if we could offer you one piece of advice as you embark on your project it would be STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD.

Deadlines are real

At the end of last year we asked staff for life advice for our Level 4 Art & Design Foundation Studies students who were heading off to University. We compiled all these important pieces of life advice to create a screen print entitled ‘Instructions for Life’. 

The most important piece of advice for the future for our students is ‘Deadlines are Real’.  If we could give you one piece of advice when embarking on a creative career it would be DEADLINES ARE REAL! 


Continue to follow our blog for more creative life advice.  Watch this space…