Summer is here and instead of being bored you could do a graphic design project with GDP! Whether you are a complete beginner at design or someone who’d like to refresh or build your portfolio you are welcome to join the GDP community. Our recommended getting-out-of-the-house for summer projects are listed here:

For beginners, get out and about looking at The Type All Around Project. This will help you to understand what typefaces and letterforms do for us. This is the basic knowledge of a graphic designer and once you begin to explore type, you will never see it in the same way again. Why is some type “invisible” and other type is very much in-your-face? What makes good type and what mistakes should you avoid when using it? This project is suitable for anyone 12 or over and will make a firm foundation for a graphic design education. It is also simply an interesting investigative activity to undertake just for fun. Any photos you gather for this project could also be sent to us for inclusion in our new, free, sister project….

While you are out of the house, try The Walk Project too. This helps you to notice hidden things around you as well as building a poster – more graphic design foundations. This too is a suitable project for anyone 12 or over and is ideal for families with younger (and older) members because they can help the young designers by joining in. This project also links to the Walking Artist. Lovely stuff for sunny, and even windy and rainy days.

If you prefer your fashion design you might like The Custom Kicks Project, in which you’ll design customised shoes and a package to match. Or, slightly more challenging is The Vintage Fashion Project, where you’ll make fashion illustration to deck out a store.

We have discounts on group projects all this year, so if you can get a group to work within the same blog you could undertake the projects that are well suited to a cluster of people working together, such as The Castle Project or The Garden Project. See how the group discounts on the page on the tab above.

It’s music festival season too so you could try one of our music-based projects. These are The Visible Sounds Project or The Words Project in which you’d visualise music for a CD cover or illustrate your favourite lyrics (or poem) respectively. GDP has in-house designers who specialise in the music industry so we get really excited about design for music.

These are just a few of our many design projects, which you can browse here. Did you know that we can create a project just for you too? You can download the projects and undertake them independently, or you could opt for tutor support to get the most out of your personalised designing experience. Our projects are serious pieces of creative work that help build your portfolio for education or industry and all have a certificate of achievement for your credit records.