Team Union Direct (l/r) - Zoe Willis, Valentina Torella, Gonzalo Cervilla, Balazs Hirth & Rachel Platts-Smith.
Our most recent One Week project finished with a remarkable flourish after the client, Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) assembled a panel to judge the presentations for a second time.
The brief from SQA was to create a campaign to promote their new National Progression Award (NPA) in Creative Thinking to teachers and the parents and carers of pupils in Scottish secondary schools. For this project we were lucky to have support from some of our favourite collaborators - Amaze Realize, Campfire, Emperor, Neish, Lewis, Union Direct and Whitespace were all involved.
Each agency took a team for the week to work on a campaign idea before pitching the work to a panel of judges from the SQA at the Emperor agency. The judges realised that a second round of judging would be required to find a winner.
The second panel, including representatives from SQA and Education Scotland, assembled at Granton Campus last Thursday and duly selected Team Union Direct, featuring HND Graphic Design students Rachel Platts Smith, Gonzalo Cervilla, Balazs Hirth, Zoe Willis, Valentina Torella, and Ross McGrail.
Their ‘Creativity is Possibility’ concept featured a range of clever ideas and promotional materials to be sent to secondary schools across the country. Edinburgh College student Rachel Platts-Smith, from the winning team, said “We are very proud to be named the winners of this year’s competition. The key to our success was definitely teamwork. We’d like to thank our mentors at Union Direct who were there every step of the way and made this experience all the more enjoyable – we couldn’t have done it without them.”
Fiona Robertson, SQA Chief Executive, and a judge on the panel, commented that “Creativity is a hugely important skill and that’s why the NPA in Creative Thinking is such an exciting development. I am thankful to all the students from Edinburgh College who provided an incredible range of ideas for promoting the qualification.”
Also on the panel, Martin Boyle, Head of creative, Hospitality, and Sport at SQA, added: “It was thrilling to see the students tackle the brief with such commitment, and creativity. The whole project has been a fantastic example of engaging creative education in practice, bringing together the college, students and industry to create something special. Of course, this isn’t just a theoretical exercise. We hope to be in a position to be able offer our NPA in Creative Thinking to schools and colleges across the country, and utilise the work of team Union Direct in our activities. The standard of work the students presented was genuinely exceptional. I look forward to hearing more about their progress.”
Well done all and huge thanks both to the client and our amazing agency friends.
