Communication Design School of Design
Isabella Ramsay
I am an industry experienced animator and illustrator who loves pairing playful and innovative storytelling methods with rich visuals. I love working in these mediums because there is so much room for experimentation and for my own personal influences to saturate the work. Recent inspiration for my work includes 1960’s-70’s psychedelic design, Celtic folklore, and my favourite childhood cartoons. In my day-to-day life, I also love learning about the natural world and its native flora and fauna. In recent years, I have incorporated this interest into my creative work, creating a mindful and sustainable practice which aligns itself with native Scottish wildlife.
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The Cat Prince
Contains some mature language.
In my main project from fourth year, ‘The Cat Prince’, I was commissioned to animate a visual parallel to the title poem from Scottish poet Michael Pedersen’s anthology ‘The Cat prince’ (Corsair, 2023). This three-minute long piece follows the biographical tale of 12 year old Pedersen dealing with themes of acceptance, masking, boyhood, and escapism. During the animation, he parades around a vibrant, lush, and thrilling imaginary realm created by himself and his friends as they dangle on the edge of adolescence, playing an all encompassing game which allows them to shed their human skin in favour of a more agile and freeing feline body. As the “cats” learn to become more comfortable in their new skin, their budding personalities show more confidence and they care far less about the conventional rules of the human world. The piece celebrates childhood wonder, individuality, and play, and invites the viewer to rekindle the intrinsic fire we were all born with.
‘The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn: Genre, Gender, Glamour’
During this year, I have taken on a couple of book cover commissions from the publishing house Liverpool University Press. One was for GSA lecturer and academic David Sweeney, named ‘The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn: Genre, Gender, Glamour’, which was released in early May 2024.
The brief was to design a cover which encapsulated Refn himself and the iconic scenes from his movies whilst circumventing copyright laws. I couldn’t draw the actors, scenes, or Refn himself, so had to become very creative with the design and layout.
Nights of Cabiria
Mild description of sexual assault.
This poster is based off of the 1957 film ‘Nights of Cabiria’, directed by Federico Fellini. It was digitally drawn, then the three colour layers were screen-printed individually by hand.
‘Nights of Cabiria’ follows the tale of an impoverished sex-worker, Cabiria, in a post-WWII Rome. Cabiria – despite her tragic past which has left her with no family or money – is completely pure of heart, and she always manages to stay optimistic after countlessly being taken advantage of for either her body or for the little wealth she has made for herself. There is also an unsettling ongoing theme throughout the film where Cabiria is constantly touched or restrained non-consensually by the men and women around her. This poster design is a nod to this, and alludes to the marks left on Cabiria by all those she’s unfortunate enough to meet and trust.
Music Commissions
Here are some posters I was commissioned to make for bands across Glasgow during this academic year. As an avid music-lover and gig-goer, I adore combining my interest with my creative talents, and making visually intriguing, bold, and highly personalised poster designs available and accessible for grassroots artists and musicians.
Project Links
Dookit Brewery Sketches
As a mini project, I decided to submit some sketches to Dookit Brewery’s call-out for label designs for their three latest brews. Dookit Brewery is a Glasgow based mini, independent brewery that creates small batches of artisinal beer. They are committed to “keeping it local”, by using locally sourced, sustainable ingredients, brewing everything on-site in Glasgow, and using local artists to design their labels.
My designs for ‘Clark’s Lager’ revolve around ideas of the Glasgow culture of drinking in the park with friends at the beginning of summer-time, and what may happen if all of the humans stayed home during one lovely, sunny day so that all of the native Scottish flora and fauna could come out to bask in the sunshine with their friends.
Project Links
Guerrilla Gardening Seed-Bombs
Earlier on in the year, I was in the process of applying to the Saltire Scholarship programme, which allows internship opportunities to those in their final years of university. One step of this process included an interview where I had to give a presentation to a group about something I was interested in.
I decided to base my presentation on guerrilla gardening, which is a technique of re-wilding that includes spreading native wild-flower seeds in an anarchic fashion in order to help out the local wildlife. As part of this presentation, I decided to make a batch of seed-bombs to hand out at the end of my presentation, so that everyone could get involved straight away. Seed-bombs are small balls made from soil, native wild-flower seeds, flour and water, and they just need to be thrown onto a stretch of barren land, where they will split open and disperse their seeds. The amount I gave out that day will produce up to 150 squared metres of native Scottish wild-flowers come summertime.
As a design student, I also decided to make sustainable packaging and labelling for the seed bombs as well.
