School of Design and Creative Arts Student Vlogs 2026
Every year the final-year students in the School of Design and Creative Arts put together a final collection to be shown in the Degree Show. This is the culmination of their work throughout their degree course and a platform to raise their profile prior to graduating and starting their careers, as well as an opportunity to share their work with family and friends.
We commissioned five students from Creative Arts to put together a short video charting their progress as they worked towards the installation of their collection for the 2026 exhibition. These videos give a fascinating insight into the processes involved and the range of skills and techniques the students have used to complete their collections.
Alongside their videos, we asked each of the students to tell us a bit more about themselves and their arts practice and/or collection. The videos will be added to this page as and when they are published to YouTube. We have also added links to their profile on the Digital Degree Show website.
The Degree Show 2026 runs from 6-10 June. After this date you can view the show online and find out more about all the finalists.
Izzy Bramwell
Graphic Design
Hi, my name is Izzy! I'm a final-year Graphic Design student specialising in illustration and story-driven work. I'm someone who is always trying to get involved in everything creative and fun! Throughout my time on the course, I have also polished my skills in branding, advertising and designs for products. During my Enterprise year I worked hard to create the foundations of a small art business, making jewellery, prints and other products and artworks. I continued my passion for making into my final year, founding the Makers Society and running a number of student Makers Markets on campus. I love sharing art with others and adore making connections with like-minded creative people!
My Degree Show Work consists of three projects: a children's story book, conceptual artwork for a graphic novel & promotional material for the Literary Festival that was held in May. The children's book titled: 'The Little Raven's Song' follows a Raven trying to find her own voice. This project had me dabble in poetry and print and was later submitted to the Macmillan Prize for Illustration 2026. It aims to encourage children to express themselves and embrace creativity. My graphic novel work follows the story of a young Ranger named Riven, trying to make sense of a corrupted fantasy world and find his place and power within it. This was a collaborative project with English Masters Student Alex Scholes. He did the script, while I did the visual development. In this, I worked with character design, creature design, storytelling, storyboarding and much more. The story aims to tackle issues of today subtly, in a way that is easier to consume. For my last project, I created sticker and bookmark designs for the English Masters Students Literary Festival that took place in May. These designs were printed and given out for free at one of the Makers Markets that I ran in March to help promote their upcoming week of events.
Izzy's video will be added here once it has been published on YouTube.
Katie Fitzhenry
Textile Design and Innovation
My practice explores the intersection of traditional Japanese craft, biomaterial innovation, and sustainable fashion. Through my project ‘Washi, Waste and Mycelium’, I investigate how heritage techniques such as paper-making, Kamiko, and Shifu can be reinterpreted through contemporary bio-material design to create new possibilities for textile development. Rather than viewing waste as something to be discarded, I explore how it can become an active component within material creation, growth, and transformation. Taking on the role as both substrate and nutrition to Mycelial growth.
A key part of my work is identifying alignments between traditional philosophies and contemporary sustainability movements. Through research into Japanese approaches to material value, longevity, and resourcefulness, I have developed a design methodology that combines historical craft knowledge with emerging biomaterials. My experimentation has highlighted the compatibility between paper-making, waste streams and mycelial growth, revealing opportunities for biological processes to strengthen, structure, and reimagine discarded materials.
My approach is research-driven and material-led, combining scientific experimentation with hands-on textile practice. Through paper-making, weaving, natural dyeing and mycelium cultivation, I create materials that challenge conventional ideas of waste and fashion materials and production. Ultimately, my work proposes a future where traditional craft knowledge and bio-materials work together to create regenerative and culturally informed alternatives for the fashion and textile industry.
Katie's video will be added here once it has been published on YouTube.
Evelyn Lopez Fernandez
Fine Art
I’m an artist specialising in drawing and photography. My practice explores how images are constructed and destabilised through photographic processes and drawing, examining how meaning shifts as an image is translated between mediums. Beginning with analogue photographs as indexical traces of reality, I utilise drawing as a form of re-engaging with the imagery, allowing the medium to disrupt the photograph’s assumed claim to truth. Through this translation between mediums, the images become visually constructed foregrounding the role of the hand as a metaphor for the act of making, creating a connection between the subject of the work and the material processes that occur during production.
Within my practice, materiality is approached through physical, hands-on processes, where the imagery is shaped through touch and intervention. As the work moves through darkroom manipulation and drawn interpretation, the imagery becomes disrupted and reworked, shifting a singular moment towards a fluid and interpretative visual. These processes emphasise the image as something actively constructed, suggesting that what is perceived as ’truth’ is instead produced through processes of alteration, reconstruction, and translation.
The installation of the work is integral to communicating these ideas. By displaying photographs and drawings together in a distributed arrangement, viewers are encouraged to move between different stages of the image, encountering fragments of translation. Through this, the installation foregrounds the process of translation itself, demonstrating that meaning emerges through the relationship formed between mediums and images. Ultimately, the work challenges the stability of photography, demonstrating that meaning is not within a single image, but produced through process, materiality, and interpretation.
Watch Evelyn's video
Anna Polanowski
Fine Art
My work is about place, focusing on themes of exploration and psychogeography. I photograph my surroundings using 35mm film, which I combine with painting and drawing techniques. This allows me to project my internal emotional responses onto my external perceptions, creating a dialogue between what is seen and what is felt. Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space becomes relevant here, discussing the deep emotional connection between humans and the spaces they inhabit, focusing on lived experience, memory and imagination. Much like my practice, Bachelard contrasts the outside and inside, exploring how external structures shape our internal worlds. I then print my images onto tracing paper, the translucency of which allows me to create layered mosaics, intuitively arranged into my own personal form of mapping; my work is a record of my experience walking through a space, translated into a visual language for others to interpret.
My process begins with film photography because it limits the number of photographs I can take, encouraging me to be purposeful, reflective and engage consciously with my environment. For example, I consider the lives of the people who frequent places, and although there are no figures in my photographs, I am interested in their presence through the things they leave behind, the footprints in the mud, the buildings they inhabit, graffiti etc. The principles of psychogeography guide this thoughtful and deliberate way of exploring places, whereby I reveal their emotional impact by uncovering hidden connections and experiences. Coined by Guy Debord in 1955, psychogeography involves moving through a space, often taking arbitrary routes to challenge normal perceptions. It is both a method of creative exploration and a way of analysing the psychological effects of a place.
Watch Anna's video
Marianne Ramos
Fine Art
I’m Marianne, a final year Fine Art student. My practice is driven by the versatility of clay and the tensions that emerge through manipulating it. By forming compositions through separate vessels, I explore methods in unifying them through colour and height. Through the medium of clay, the ceramic process becomes the beating heart of my practice. By using the systematic arrangement of the grid, I stray from the organic forms often synonymous with ceramics. I begin with the intention of precision and consistency, employing controlled methods of making. However, imperfection is inevitable meaning the outcome becomes shaped both by artistic intention and scientific reactions, allowing the material a degree of autonomy.
Marianne's video will be added here once it has been published on YouTube.