I’ve become acutely aware recently that my posts are erratic
and I spend too many of my update posts apologising for my sporadicism (is that
a word? Sporadic-ness?). A few weeks ago
I published a post about a project I was doing as part of my degree – taking apart an Aston Martin engine – and though my degree is intensive (and really
hard, I might add) I do spend my time doing other things as well as that and
arts and crafts that feature on my blog.
One of my hobbies is to take photos, as you may have
guessed, and I am currently the Official Photographer and Design Editor of the
University of Birmingham’s Formula Student team, UBRacing. “What is UBRacing?” I hear you cry. Well, in
a nutshell, it’s a project where engineering students (and other undergrads)
group together as a uni and make a car – a geared go kart – from scratch. It’s then taken to competitions at
Silverstone and other worldwide tracks (including Hockenheim, Germany) and
raced against students from other universities all over the world. As part of
the competition the team also have to do a sales pitch type presentation,
presenting the car and ‘brand’ of UBRacing to a panel, and are marked on that
too.
So what’s my job? Well, like I said before, I take the
pictures. I also design pretty much all
the publications (Brochures, hand outs, PDFs, slideshows) and sort out the
branding of the car. I think it’s
because I’m the only graphics and art nut on the team.
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The cover of our 2012 Sponsorship Pack |
Anyway, so a lot of the time, when I’m not writing and
publishing my crafts on my blog and I’m not doing uni work, I am working with
UBRacing doing arty stuff for them!
Incidentally, if you recognise any of this, it's because I've mentioned it before.
So please, forgive me for my infrequent posts and feel safe
in the knowledge that I am still doing arty things, it’s just that you don’t
see them.
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The Acceleration Event in the heavy rain |
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Judging the car in the Design Event |
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Prepping the car for the next event |
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The Sprint Event in the sunshine |
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In the Pits |
I know it sounds like a cliché but working with UBRacing has
done me a lot of good. Not only to I
know more about the mechanics of how cars work, and how much effort has to go
into projects like these but it’s helped me manage my time better and I’ve even
become more interested in graphic design as a whole.
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Click to see the website I've put together for the team |
I’ve always been of the opinion that graphic design isn’t
for me. One of the things I can’t do
which is quite poignant to me is doodle.
I’ve never been able to. I always
have to draw from reference, be it life or photo. But working for UBRacing has shown to me how
much graphic design comes into everything we see, whether it’s font on a page
or the background of an advert on the side of a bus; someone thought that
up. Maybe I’ll start doing more art
courses during my holidays again, who knows? I’m sure I’ll keep you up to date.
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