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The Graduate Exhibition of the TU Dublin School of Creative Arts is the highlight of the academic year for our students and staff. This online catalogue represents the culmination of many years of full time study and gives our students the opportunity to showcase the results of their imagination, hard work and creative skills in a public arena. The exhibition features work from all our programmes and highlights the exciting and innovative range of work produced by our graduates across Fine Art, Furniture, Product, Interior, Visual Merchandising, Visual Communication Design and Creative and Cultural Industries.

The 2022 exhibition is particularly special as it is the first opportunity we have had to invite the public to our brand new East Quad Arts building and give everyone a chance to see our magnificent new studios and workshops.

The identity and design of this year’s exhibition, catalogue and website was created by Visual Communication students Marwa Noelle Ali, Conor Rice and Aisling Hannon. Their design uses manipulated type to illustrate the progression from individual broken up pixels to full letterforms, to represent the coming together of the final year cohort in the post pandemic era.

Launch June 2, 6pm
Open Daily June 3—11, 10am—5pm
East Quad, TU Dublin, Grangegorman, Dublin 7

Isabel Deegan

My name is Isabel Deegan, and I am a final year Visual Merchandising and Display Student in Technological University Dublin. Throughout my studies over the past three years, I have gained a vast amount of skills and knowledge that I can bring to the workplace once completing this course. I was fortunate to get the opportunity to do an internship with Dunnes Stores in Stephens green working alongside experienced visual merchandisers and learning how to install shop fits and display Lauches of new products that I will use in my future career. At the end of my internship, I designed a window instore for my Major project installation. I would highly recommend this course to anybody pursuing a career in the Fashion industry.

Gathered Abstract

My Major Project installation was designed for Dunnes Stores in St. Stephens Green. As my window space was large but included boundaries, I decided to design a tall abstract backdrop as a focal point. I had to create a window display that suited the company's target market. 'Gathered Abstract' was influenced by the WGSN Spring/Summer 2022 Macro trend 'Euphoric.' The macro trend explores escapism and looks closer into energising the mind, body, and soul through art and design. I was inspired by the bold, bright colours and prints within the 'Colour me happy' theme and used this as my palette. I decided to create an abstract design of a map of St. Stephens green and the surrounding streets to portray the area's history. I made the map using paint and vinyl. I chose patterned and bright-coloured clothing from Savida to style my mannequins in reflection of my backdrop. I used colour blocking in the handbag display using woven-style Savida bags. I decided to utilise the spacing in the window and create two groups of mannequins as if they were at a gathered event.

Back to the streets

I decided to pick Off White's luxury street style brand for the fashion and branding module and design a 3D rendered window installation for their Spring/Summer 2022 launch. Once I further researched the brand and its target market, I decided I wanted to keep with the aesthetic and ethos of the luxury company, which is street style fashion, modern and edgy. I further researched their new flagship store in Paris. The store has an industrial and street aesthetic, reflecting the brand and its history. Lots of negative space and minimal colour are themes throughout Off White stores. However, recently they've expanded into using bold colours in their store interior. I designed two window concepts, one for the flagship window and a roll-out window.

My vision for this concept was to use the Off-White basic garments to keep the original designs and patterns in the window. I then opted to include current on-trend accessories such as trainers and handbags. I wanted to have both women's and menswear garments. To link in the street vibe, I opted to commission Aches Dublin, a local Graffiti artist, to design a funky art wall to bring the original aesthetic of Off White to the window mixing high street fashion with luxury. Keeping to the industrial theme, I wanted to make sure there were road markings, concrete flooring, gas boxes, and industrial poles to suspend clothing, reflecting the brand and its industrial theme.