Callum Cole

Callum Cole completed the Foundation Diploma in Art & Design course in 2023.

Plans for next year?

I’ll be studying Communication Design at Glasgow School of Art.

How has the Foundation Diploma influenced your work?

The foundation has pushed me out of my creative comfort zone, which has really helped me to expand my practice across a much broader range of mediums, techniques and ideas. It’s also allowed me to develop a lot more experience on project based work and how to develop work into final outcomes, which I’m sure will be a very valuable skill for degree level.

Any advice for new students on the Foundation Diploma?

I would say to try all the workshops and inductions available to you, the more facilities you can utilise the better when creating, and you might realise you are skilled in a medium you weren’t aware of. The facilities are amazing too, so it’s a great opportunity to take advantage of this. I’d also say try to get to know as many people as possible, it really helps to settle in and you might even end up on the same degree as someone.

What techniques or facilities have you used to create your work?

For my work I’ve been using a lot of adobe photoshop, illustrator, indesign and lightroom as well as the bookbinding and cam suite facilities.

Can you share some highlights from your time at Manchester School of Art?

I really enjoyed doing peer group reviews, I think not only were they a really good way to meet people you might not meet otherwise, they were also enlightening in seeing what other students on the course were creating in different mediums and being able to take inspiration from this in your own work.

Ben and Louise were my tutors in the graphic illustration room and they were really helpful in pushing me out of my comfort zone and giving me helpful advice on my project work, and how to progress it. Adan, who is the technician at the cam suite, was really helpful in accommodating me to use the cam suite regularly and experimenting with what I wanted to create. And Manchester itself has a huge influence on my project work, and by studying here I often used it as a source of inspiration. my final project was very much centred around the city, focusing on areas i felt were overlooked and creating work around this. I constructed building lamps which were created based on buildings in Manchester/Salford deemed the most ugly, created a photo zine based on images I’ve taken around north Manchester and created posters on some of the socio-economic issues faced in Manchester and other urban areas.