By Jess Brown, BA (Hons) Graphic Design and Illustration, 2nd year.

You know the big old post office down the road from Owen building? A lot of you may not know this, but that’s where us freaky deaky art kids hang out and do our courses. It’s strange because just up the road is the main City Campus and yet it feels sometimes like we live in an entirely different world.

Hallam Handmade and the fashion students’ John Lewis fashion show were held here towards the end of last year and are being planned for next year too. We are a strange and friendly bunch and we have a cafe you can come and sit in where adverts for our events are scattered about. Our events are sometimes advertised in the Owen building too on flyers, but we are trying to buff that up and get some big posters put up!

I’m not sure where the disconnect comes from. Perhaps we scare people away by dressing like peacocks or 19th century romantics. It’s like with Varsity – we barely hear anything about that down in the post office.

You can also support us by just following us on Instagram. If you like looking at or making art you can find us all on Instagram. It seems to be its own bubble of illustration and design students at the moment, and I can’t speak for everyone but I would personally love to connect more with people!

I think we should all try to support local businesses and creatives so that the industry doesn’t die a boring death. Even if it’s just looking at our work it’s supporting it. We’re here just down the road, part of the uni, part of the culture. Our courses are basically business courses too to teach us how to sell our products and expand ourselves. So if you want to help us expand that would be massively appreciated.

So head on down to the Head Post Office building to check out what goes on there – we’ll make you welcome.

You can also follow me on Instagram at @spectrejess and my fellow Hallam Insider @ldillustrates – we’ll be sure to follow you back!