Trying to ignore the horrible weather and feeling like you’d like to create instead? Then look no further than GDP’s featured projects.

For music lovers we’ve got The Visible Sounds Project and The Words Project. The first introduces you to a fantastic range of imaginative designers, artists and animators who have tried to convey the sounds of music through image-making. After that you’ll be guided through the design process to create a stunning c.d. cover for a musician or band of your own choice.

The Words Project asks you to illustrate your favourite lyrics or poems and to explore a variety of techniques of making images. You’ll also learn about different ways of setting typography to make it look appropriate and amazing. You’ll investigate the debate about whether type should be expressive or plain.

If you are exploring Black History Month you could use The Life Story Project to go into depth about a historical character of your choice and create an illustrated book about their exploits. In fact, this project can be undertaken by anyone investigating in any person from history or simply interested in illustration.

Meanwhile, for those of you who want to start to explore graphic design from the very beginning we have The Type All Around Project that will help you to look at your surroundings with brand new eyes and to understand how and why letterforms look the way they do. You’ll make a simple poster.

Or you could step into spring by designing your own customised shoes and matching packaging in our lively Custom Kicks Project.

All of these projects and many others are available on our website http://www.thegraphicdesignproject.com/projects/. You can, as always, choose to undertake the projects independently or with tutor support. So if you want to start learning graphic design or want to improve your portfolio come and join our design community! Projects are recommended for those aged 14 plus.