The highly-anticipated St Austell Printing Company Calendar has been unveiled, featuring artwork by talented third-year Falmouth University Illustration students.
This year’s theme is “Land, Sea and Air”, three key ingredients which help define Cornwall’s identity. Illustrations feature Cornwall’s indigenous wildlife, the story of how the Minack Theatre was born and even a lighthearted tale of how Cornwall Air Ambulance helped to save Christmas.
Thousands of calendars have been printed and sent to SAPC’s clients across the UK. Copies were also available, with all money raised going to Cornwall Wildlife Trust.
Matt Bunt, SAPC’s Marketing and Communications Manager said: “This is the fifth year we’ve worked with the students at Falmouth and the quality of the illustrations as well as the original ideas has really impressed us.”
Matt and SAPC Designer Ben Pipe were given the unenviable task of selecting the winning illustrations. “Nearly 40 artists submitted illustrations based around the brief, which we had to whittle down to the final 13.”
Matt added. “There were some very tough decisions. If only 2020 was made up of 40 months, then we would have found a home for every single one of them.”
Ben said: “The standard was exceptionally high again this year combined with great creativity. All the students took the time to understand the brief which led to some really creative interpretations and it was good to see a wide variety of finishes including watercolours and screen-printing.These students really have bright futures ahead of them. Thank you to all of them for helping us create a really special calendar.”
This project is part of the third-year curriculum of the course in conjunction with the Illustration Department at Falmouth and gives students the opportunity to work on a live project with regular feedback from SAPC. This year, to celebrate the launch of SAPC’s new specialist finishing department the front cover also features tasteful silver foiling.
With a significant number of calendar recipients working in design and marketing agencies, this offers a unique opportunity for the students to promote themselves to people that might be able to offer work.
“We want the calendar to be used as a platform to promote the students’ talent.” continued Matt.
“We have heard stories of students being awarded projects and jobs off the back of previous calendars.”
Matt continued “2019 was a very special year for SAPC and our sustainability journey. We’ve been named the UK’s most environmentally-friendly printing company with four major awards and are the only printing company to become a Wildlife Partner of the Cornwall Wildlife Trust. Therefore it felt natural to use this calendar to help raise money for the charity.”