Afterglow

One of the organisers of the 2nd year student Graphic & Media Design exhibition this term, Nihaal Nazeer, tells us about the experience:

January 10th 2024, the day “Afterglow” officially began. Afterglow was a GMD Year 2 in progress show that took place at the Ugly Duck in London. It was the first GMD Year 2 show that had taken place outside of LCC in recent years. It was a lot of firsts, not only for every student and tutor who organised it, but also for the ones whose work was displayed. To call it just an experience would be underwhelming, because it was so much more.

The exhibition was handled primarily by students with a lot of support from our amazing tutors. We had a very short turnaround period of 2 weeks to ideate, market and bring the exhibition to life. The students in charge split up into 3 teams, each led by a team leader who in turn answered to two organisers. The three teams were responsible for 1. Creating the Identity, 2. Curating the incredible work and 3. In charge of the production and set up of the space. This structured approach allowed us to create an environment where work flowed smoothly.

It was a beautiful opportunity to push ourselves and work on something we had never experienced before. It ended up being a lot more difficult than any of us anticipated, with us working in the studio for up to 8 hours every day for those 2 weeks. After the Identity team created the posters and invitations for the event, they took over GMD’s social media to market the exhibition as much as possible. The curation team had to choose the work to be displayed while making sure every student was represented and also planning out the layout of the designs in the exhibition space. The production team had to set up the work as per the design, drilling holes, setting up projectors and moving things to where they had to be. Everybody gave their 100 percent to make Afterglow what it was.

The space itself was very interesting. Unlike a regular exhibition space, it was worn down in places, giving it an industrial feel, whereas the room next to it was cosy and warm. This mixed with varying and highly contrasting work, created a unique atmosphere. There were 4 project rotations of work that were presented; Loop, Transition, Advocate! and Mixed Messages. This meant that we had everything from GIFs, moving images, A1 typographic posters, zines, badges and other posters at the venue.

All the work the team put in was worth it, as the final product was better than we could have ever imagined. A huge thanks to every student who contributed their work to be shown, as well as our tutors who helped create that work and  the exhibition. FInally, a massive thanks to every student from every team that put in the work during a very busy couple of weeks to create the huge success that was Afterglow. It was an unforgettable experience and I’ll remember every joke, every hardship, every drink, every conversation and every friendship that was formed while creating the show.”