Glasgow School of Art Christmas E-Card

Clubhouse Founder Eleanor Stewart was commissioned by Glasgow School of Art to create their annual Christmas e-card as a paper stop motion animation. Eleanor, who graduated from Visual Communication from the Glasgow School of Art in 2009, created a playful stop motion film with music by MDes Sound for Moving Image graduate, Fiona McNeill.

The e-card features imagery from some of the Glasgow School of Art Christmas cards made and collected by GSA alumnus, lecturer and WWII Veteran Conrad McKenna, which are held in School’s Archives & Collections. McKenna, who died earlier this year, aged 95, collected cards created and sent by staff at the GSA over a 60-year period, one of which was also reproduced for Nicola Sturgeon’s First Minster’s Christmas Card in 2014.

Among the cards which Eleanor has animated in her colourful e-card is one featuring Santa driving a delivery van, which was designed and made by Conrad McKenna himself in 1990. Also featured is a vibrant coloured turkey from a card designed by Mark Fernand Severin in the 1950s.

“The Glasgow School of Art has a long tradition of creativity and this year’s Christmas e-card illustrates this perfectly,”says Professor Irene McAra-McWilliam, Director of The Glasgow School of Art. “In this year’s design we are not only celebrating the work of more recent graduates Eleanor Stewart and Fiona McNeill, but also of generations of GSA artists and designers whose unique Christmas cards were collected over 60 years by GSA alumnus and lecturer, Conrad McKenna.”

"It was an honour to create this year's Glasgow School of Art Christmas e-card and work from Conrad McKenna's lovely archives,” says Eleanor Stewart.

“As a graduate of The Glasgow School of Art I love the thought of sending a special well-wishing e-card far and wide, with Conrad's collections brought to life. Working with Fiona, another alumnus of the school, has been a brilliant experience,and so fitting since the Glasgow creative network thrives on collaboration and inspiring one another."

“I am thrilled to know that Conrad’s memory is continuing to flourish with this card he was so happy to work on some years back,” adds Pat Isles, Conrad McKenna’s niece.

In recent years GSA Christmas e-cards have been created by GSA alumni animator and graphic designer James Houston (2013); BAFTA award winning animator, Ross Hogg (2014); sound designer Laurence Chan (2015) and acclaimed musicians Donald Barr (2016), Patience (2017) and Graeme Ronald (2018).

All the Christmas cards in the Conrad McKenna collection can be seen on GSA’s Archives & Collections website: https://gsaarchives.net/collections/index.php/dc-073-1