MA Design Practice student and BA (Hons) Graphic Design graduate Mia Angioy is going from strength to strength in her professional practice. She recently completed a brief with England’s Lionesses squad for this years World Cup, has a collaboration for Converse and Liverpool FC in the works, as well as featuring in her MA final year show, finishing postgraduate studies and working as a freelancer.
We caught up with Mia to learn more about her exciting work for the world cup and gain insight into starting out in her field and studying for her Masters at our school:
Tell us about your women’s world cup project:
You are currently a postgraduate at our school. What has that experience been like? It’s been great, although challenging at times! Olivia and Alyson are amazing lecturers and the course allows you a lot of creative freedom. The facilities are also great at the uni, including the MA space. I’d definitely recommend the course to anyone thinking about doing a masters. My research this year has been varied, but the overarching focus has been on the relationship between analogue and digital techniques throughout the creative process.
Tell us about your approach and style of work and about any other projects you are working on:I’d say my approach to creative work is quite experimental, I tend to focus on collage and love finding new ways to mix images up together to create something new. I enjoy experimenting with colour and shape, and I’m always searching eBay and charity shops for interesting imagery. I studied graphic design at both college and uni, and I also love working with typography and image together, so I view myself as both a graphic designer and image maker.I’ve just finished working on another project with Alice for Converse x Liverpool FC. It hasn’t been released yet so I can’t share it, but it should be out by mid September! This was really exciting as it was my longest freelance project yet, and I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to work on something for a big brand, whilst learning from someone more experienced in the industry.
Do you have any ideas for your next steps? I’d love to continue freelancing but I’ll also be applying for local creative jobs. My next steps are to focus on building my portfolio, networking with more creatives, and incorporating new skills into my work such as animation.
Tell us about your contribution to the MA exhibition being held in September at Church St.I’m exhibiting work from multiple projects this year in the MA exhibition, you can find some of my collage work on A1 posters and the rest will be shown on a showreel on a Mac. This will include collage pieces from the Souvenir exhibition, music inspired collages and posters, and work for the Women’s World Cup project.
What would your advice be to future students looking to study art/ at the school?Be confident about putting your work out into the world, even if you don’t feel it at first. Sometimes the best opportunities come when you least expect it, sharing your work online can be so important for this and opens up potential for collaboration. You don’t always have to post full finished projects, people are also interested in the process! Be interested in other people’s work, and network with other creatives both online and in person. Not only is it inspiring to look at and support other people’s work, but people will inevitably become more interested in yours too!