Paint a Masterpiece - Write a film - Boost your Career!

Show the world your creative genius! British Airways has launched a competition to find Great Britons. Teaming up with Tracey Emin, Richard E Grant and Heston Blumenthal - this is a great opportunity to promote yourself. Visit the website to find out more.

Open Lecture: The Drawing School for Graphic Arts in Cluj-Napoca

Romanian artist Professor Radu Cãlin Solovastru, joins us on on Thursday 26 May for an open lecture entitled The Drawing School for Graphic Arts in Cluj-Napoca, in which Professor Solovastru will show and discuss his work.

The academic from Universitatea de Arta si Design Cluj-Napoca describes his work as his way of viewing life and that it was through drawing that he “discovered the world”.

“Since early times, drawing was my habit to view life in all its aspects as a perpetual intertwining of events, images, stories, faces, fantasies, actions, feelings, resentments, joys, pains, fulfilments or failures,” he explains.

The lecture will be held in the Lady Hale Lecture Theatre, beginning at 5.30pm, and is open to everyone
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Tickets are limited and you are advised to pre-register to reserve your place. Register online or contact Paul Butlin on 0161 295 5114 or at p.butlin@salford.ac.uk.

27 - A sneak preview

Umbro Industries is a new initiative from Umbro geared towards giving potential Manchester based innovators the financial backing they need and after awarding £7,000 to our Fashion team, we've obtained some screen grabs of the iphone app called 27 at Salford that they've been working on.

With a release date of the 14th June, the photography and typography are looking very slick.

Fashion wins British Fashion Council Portfolio Award

Have a look at the uber cool portfolio created by the students from BA (Hons) Fashion which yesterday won the BFC Colleges Council Graduate Preview Day Portfolio Award.

Hannah White, Fashion Monitor Editor, commented "Salford’s portfolio really stood out to the panel, it was detailed, professional and creative".

Salford Quays Art Comission

“Salford Quays, Manchester’s waterfront, was once the great port through which the nation’s goods flowed around the globe and through which the world’s products entered the country. Now, a century later, Salford Quays emerges as one of the United Kingdom’s great portals to the national and global community, through which knowledge, culture and creativity pass into and out of the country.” Michael Joroff, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on Salford Quays

The Arts Council and Salford City Council are jointly funding the commissioning of a piece of work for the public realm. The intention is to develop a 'signature' piece that says something distinctive about The Quays.

If you are interested in submitting an idea please contact Kathy Mc Ardle, Kathy.mcardle@thelowry.com or call 0161 876 2097 to obtain a copy of briefing notes.

Issue25

Students from BA (Hons) Design Futures and BA (Hons) Design Management for the Creative Industries have been hard at work on a publication produced to promote themselves and reflect the skills they have acquired on the course.

Peruse the full newspaper!

Richard Proffitt

Richard Proffitt, a gradutate from BA (Hons) Visual Arts has been shortlisted for the prestigious Liverpool Art Prize 2011.

Richard's work is inspired by ancient civilizations, teenage idols, ghost towns, curio ephemera, post-apocalyptic sci-fi films, spaghetti westerns, underground and slacker sub-culture, classroom humour and childhood memory.

The exhibition of shortlisted artists runs from 6 May - 11 June so pop along and see Richard's work. Visit the website for more information.

Today's a good day... to have a good day

"My aim is to use art...in any form, such as imagery, quotations, poetry... basically anything creative to inspire and encourage people to have a good day. The idea is to promote short term happiness to people who you may or may not know." 

Helen Ho, a student on BA (Hons) Visual Arts, has a new project which everyone can take part in. Visit her website to find out more and spread a little happiness.

Obscure Clothing

Glen Claskie - Director of Obscure Clothing, graduated from the University of Salford with a BA (Hons) Graphic Design degree in 2008.

Since graduation, Glen has established and is now expanding his company which is now moving into new premises in the Northern Quarter.

Obscure Clothing sells Glen's own brand t-shirts, Scream for Silence alongside Glamour Kills and Masked amongst others, as well as posters, hats, and hoodies.

Check out the cool illustrative styles on show.

London 2012 Olympic Logo

After a less than smooth start the London 2012 Olympics logo has come under criticism yet again - this time from Iran who have made an official complaint to the International Olympic Committee - watch the story on the BBC website

WWF: A new, green file format

What a fantastic idea! The World Wildlife Fund is promoting a new file format that prevents the file being printed out - saving trees!

Just download the software and you can start creating WWF files too.

WWF files can be opened by most software that can open PDF files making it very accessible. Watch the video to learn all about it.

Google Art Project

Described by Google as 'A unique collaboration with some of the world’s most acclaimed art museums to enable people to discover and view more than a thousand artworks online in extraordinary detail', the Google Art project really does have the potential to deliver a widely accessible experience of the world's most well known museums.

Whilst it will never replace a visit in person - the value of seeing art, it's scale and presence in a setting is uniquely informative - the 'street view' experience should draw in a wide range of people of all ages, internationally, to view art work, see the buildings that house some to the best art collections in the world, and should hopefully result in a wider appreciation of the arts and the value it brings.

Current partners of the project are:

* Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin - Germany
* Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, Washington DC - USA
* The Frick Collection, NYC - USA
* Gemäldegalerie, Berlin - Germany
* The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC - USA
* MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, NYC - USA
* Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid - Spain
* Museo Thyssen - Bornemisza, Madrid - Spain
* Museum Kampa, Prague - Czech Republic
* National Gallery, London - UK
* Palace of Versailles - France
* Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - The Netherlands
* The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg - Russia
* State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow - Russia
* Tate Britain, London - UK
* Uffizi Gallery, Florence - Italy
* Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam - The Netherlands

It's worth spending a little time to explore this treasure trove for yourself.

Visit the Google Arts Project.

Ben Murphy at The Lowry Outlet Mall

Talented artist Ben Murphy has created this fantastic illustration from tape on a shop unit window at the Lowry Outlet Mall.

Ben, a current student on the MA Contemporary Fine Art masters programme has a brilliant website chronicling his work - I particularly like Albert the Reindeer.

21st Century take on Royal Wedding Memorabilia

Whilst unofficial this has to be the best selection of Royal Wedding memorabilia I've seen to-date. Well done KK Outlet!