Postgraduate Illustration Degrees at UCA | University for the Creative Arts

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Illustration

Two minute stories

Discover the stories of our Illustration students

Margaux Carpentier

Colouring campus

Michael Tilley

Turning graphic talent into blackboard business

Lucy Munt

Tackling the complexities of grief

Xuan Liu

Creating a comic that sheds light on Tourette’s

Bri Chartrand

Giving Zizzi a mural makeover

Over the last couple of weeks, we had Illustrator and UCA alum, Margaux Carpentier, on campus, working on an incredible mural in our Farnham canteen.

A passion for lettering leads to

booming success for Michael

Now better known as The Blackboard Artist, Michael travels the country designing stunning blackboards and other signage for restaurants, bars, coffee shops and lots of other independent businesses.

Michael has worked with established companies such as Soho House, Virgin, Strada, Everyman Cinema, Big Easy and Simmons Bars.

During COVID lockdowns Michael turned to teaching, running online Zoom lessons for blackboard enthusiasts.

Try your very best to turn every negative into a positive. Seven years ago when I started working on blackboards I was low in confidence and working in a pub kitchen as a kitchen porter, but I worked really hard to build my business on the side, as I knew painting was one of my passions.

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Illustration student’s beautiful book

tackles the complexities of grief

After losing someone close to her Lucy set out to use her talents to help other young adults coping with loss.

She used her own experience as motivation for the four-month project.

I lost someone very close to me and it was a sudden death, which was an experience that I wish no one had to go through. But I found there were no engaging or visual books to help me understand what I was going through, and young adults are experiencing more problematic responses to loss than we think.

<p>The result of Lucy’s hard work is her beautiful book, which uses metaphorical objects to help the reader see grieving through symbols, which she uses to communicate emotions and feelings.</p>

The result of Lucy’s hard work is her beautiful book, which uses metaphorical objects to help the reader see grieving through symbols, which she uses to communicate emotions and feelings.

I like making images that can make a difference to people, whether that’s as part of educational books or just fun, creative illustrations that make people smile.

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Xuan’s comic aims to

shed light on Tourette’s

Xuan's book (The Elephant) details how the main character – a girl with Tourette’s, goes on a journey from finding she has the condition, to accepting herself.

When she has an attack, parts of her body turn into an elephant – making the phrase “the elephant in the room”, a metaphor for the disorder.

Xuan, who hopes to become a freelance illustrator, took three months creating her book and is important to her as she herself has the condition.

It affects me a lot, I sometimes have insomnia, and I sometimes have trouble concentrating and twitching... I liken Tourette's to an elephant in the comics because that's how I feel... everyone knows I'm different, even think I'm weird, but because they are adults, they don't say it directly.

'I hope that people without Tourette Syndrome read this cartoon more than people with it, because I want everyone to know more about this disease.'

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Bri’s murals are

a Zizzi success

Bri, a third-year UCA Illustration student, has transformed two huge wall spaces at the Maidstone branch of Zizzi, using a colour palette inspired by the local area.

It’s the second time this year that UCA students have put their talents to the test, after Ruth Blacklock and Izzy Barrett transformed Zizzi in Farnham.