40 Years of Publishing

Edinburgh Napier University is proudly celebrating over 40 Years as a centre of excellence in publishing education.

Today, we offer two postgraduate publishing degrees here in the capital of Scotland.

Many projects and events were organised to mark our 40th birthday in 2009, which culminated in – you guessed it! – a party at our Merchiston campus.

This was a fantastic networking for industry professionals, staff and students (past and present) alike.

To mark the occasion, publishing students on a third-year module published a new version of Edinburgh-born Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, featuring the master-detective, Sherlock Holmes. Not only was the group responsible for the layout and typography, they commissioned a professional artist to produce the internal illustrations and cover artwork, which they then designed.

The Edward Clark Bequest sponsored the project as part of the 500 Years of Printing in Scotland celebrations, the Edinburgh-based illustrator Cate James contributed her illustrations, and Bell and Bain Ltd of Glasgow did the printing. Truly a Scottish product – right through from author to printer!

The book, published by Merchiston Publishing, has already had a fantastic response and 500 copies will be distributed to schools and libraries across Scotland. Prof. Alistair McCleery, Director of the Scottish Centre for the Book said: ‘We are sure that Edward Clark, Chairman and MD of R & R Clark of Edinburgh (a major printer of its day), would be delighted to see his legacy used to support such a Scottish-centred, educational and innovative publishing project.’

One major USP of our Publishing studies is this hands-on publishing and real engagement with live projects and the industry. We now have many more books and magazines in our list: click here to find out about our other student projects…