#oneweek6 Friday

Our latest 'One Week' project is finishing up today, with the teams finalising their ideas with their respective mentors and agencies. The client for this project is Edinburgh-based craft beer specialists Innis and Gunn, and the agencies who've supported the course and taken on teams are Blonde Digital, The Gate Worldwide, Lewis, MultiplyUK, Realise and Whitespace.

All six teams will have a few days to tweak their solutions, and the final presentations to the client will be on Thursday. The work will also be exhibited in the college Hub on that day, and the winning design will be used by Innis & Gunn in its summer promotion plans. You can catch up on how the projects have been going via our Storify, although the teams have been under strict instructions for the client not to discuss or post images of their work.

Synergy

According to the CBi's Creative Nation report, the creative industries now provides a 'central part of the UK’s global appeal' and subsequently underpins much of the UK economy. The key action moving forward that the report highlights is that 'to cement its position as the world’s leading creative hub, the industry has to take steps now to build on existing progress'.

One big aspect of this is the 'synergy' between the various disciplines and areas - the need for collaboration and a sharing of ideas to ensure that all the underlying industries involved have the foundations in place for long-term success.

Our HNC groups have been investigating this situation as part of their Creative Industries projects. This year Film & TV, Radio and Graphics all worked together on a series of outcomes based around exploring, documenting and disseminating information and ideas about the current state of the Creative Industries. This includes how studios and production companies recruit and manage teams, and control workflow, budgets and copyright issues.

Working in Film & TV and Radio collaborated on an infographics project, which was written as a radio or film script, and then either broadcast or shot as video. Graphics then provided art direction on publishing this work, either via blogs, social media, or more traditional channels.

Tutor Conor Wright explains the process' "Earlier this year the college launched an initiative called 'Creatives Connect' - basically a social media space where creatives from all the courses could organise collaboration, share best practice and generally get into the habit of networking. So with the emphasis on cross-collaboration and a multi-disiplined approach to creative work, we felt that the groups should emulate this working style, so that their investigation of synergy in the sector was itself an example of that synergy".


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One Week #4 : Cutty Sark

Our fourth 'One Week' project kicks off next week, and today the students were handed out the brief by the client, the blended Scotch Whisky brand Cutty Sark.

This time around we've expanded the format to involve six design agencies who will act as mentors, hosts and creative collaborators - an original and ground-breaking experiment in design education. We've also appointed a design lead within each team, and they'll direct the projects and manage the agency liaison.

Cutty Sark's Global Brand Controller, Jason Craig, gave a detailed presentation in the studio, covering the history, brand development and target markets for the product. He proposed a very open brief - Cutty Sark are looking for fresh ideas to add momentum to their continuing market recovery from a historical low in terms of sales in 2009.  Mentors Charlie Bell and Walter Hamilton (Whitespace), Charlie Boyle (Multiply), and Graham Neish (Neish) also gave up their valuable time today to attend,  alongside Iain Lauder, who originally brought the project to the design team back in late 2013. Jason's presentation included this short promo detailing Cutty Sark's brand philosophy -



One Week kicks off on Monday 17th, with the teams allocated as follows:

1 : Lead - Calum Mackinnon, Mentor - Graham Neish (Neish)
2 : Lead - Andy Palfreyman, Mentor - Gregor Mathieson (Lewis)
3 : Lead - Ryan Allan, Mentors - Charlie Bell/Walter Hamilton (Whitespace)
4 : Lead - Isabel Alonzo, Mentor - Kirsten Murray (Family)
5 : Lead - Mark Phillips, Mentor - Charlie Boyle (Multiply)
6 : Lead - Jordan Pollock, Mentor - Jen Wood (RAPP)

One Week Pitches

Our 'One Week Agency' teams presented their work in the studio today to the client, SAMH. Also in attendance were mentors Graham Neish, Alan Lennon and Veronica Ferguson. Each team pitched a great concept with plenty of ideas - some safe, some radical - and the client will now have to go away and make some tough decisions. Jo Anderson, SAMH's Director of External Affairs & Fundraising, said "We were blown away by the amount the students have achieved in a single week.  The pitches felt really professional, and the creative is really strong in all the solutions, so we've got a difficult task now to pick a winner".

Ahead of the selection, we've exhibited a small sample from each project down in the college Hub, and they look a little bit like this -


Team 1 : Mentor - Graham Neish (Neish)


Team 2 : Mentor - Alan Lennon (Lennon)


Team 3 : Mentor - Kirsten Murray (Family)


Team 4 : Mentors - Gill Carrie, Gregor Matheson (Lewis)


Team 5 : Mentor - Jen Wood (RAPP)


Team 6: Mentors - Ian Kirkby, Michael Heins (Lewis)

Once the client has made a decision, we'll post the full presentations, plus some nice photos (by our resident photographer Derek Anderson), documenting the week and the presentations. You can find out more about this project here.

One Week Agency #3

We've been busy this week organising our 'One Week Agency' project. This is the third year we've set a project in this format, where our design students are split into small agency teams to work on a live client brief, alongside an industry mentor. Tutor involvement is minimal and the teams are essentially autonomous 9-to-5 for the whole week.

We've expanded the project from last year, assembling six teams of six students by combining the HND and HNC classes. We also have a great roster of industry collaborators, including mentors Graham Neish (Neish), Kirsten Murray (Family), Alan Lennon (Lennon), Jen Wood (RAPP), and a quartet from Lewis, comprising Ian Kirkby, Gregor Matheson, Gill Carrie, Michael Heins.

To accommodate the teams we've secured an impressive set of team locations - three in-house at the Granton campus, two at the Creative Exchange in Leith, and one at the RAPP Agency.

This time around the work is for SAMH (Scottish Association for Mental Health), Scotland’s leading mental health charity (www.samh.org.uk). SAMH's Lexi Parfitt (Campaigns Officer) and Rebecca Sibbett (External Comms) were in our studio today to present the creative brief to our teams. They highlighted recent research conducted by YouGov showing that 45% of people in the 18-25 age bracket said they wouldn’t know where to go to get help with a mental health problem. The challenge therefore is to use any channel of communication to enable young people in Scotland to get help for mental health problems when they need it.

SAMH's current campaign to raise awareness is called ‘Know Where to Go’ and this idea is a key creative parameter the teams need to work within. They also need to use the SAMH logo and brand guidelines, which incidentally have recently been re-designed by one of our favourite agencies, Heedi, whose Creative Director Veronica Ferguson is one of our longest-serving mentors.

We'll be documenting each stage of the process with the six groups, and the presentations for the project will take place on Nov 21st in studio R310 at Granton Campus. Then it's over to the client to make their decision!

One Week Agency #3 runs from 11th-15th November.

More:
Edinburgh Zoo One Week concepts (March 2013)
Letts Diaries One Week (March 2012)

A Helping Hand

As well as our successful Mentoring Programme for Final Year design students, we also run an internal mentoring scheme, where each student in a given year takes a student in year below under their wing. This holistic approach to design education allows students to share in a community of practice, gaining critical and reflective skills which will serve them well out in the workplace.

Earlier this week, our Final Year students offered up advice to the HNC Year on their book cover project, a set of four Raymond Chandler novels, no images, just typography. A selection of these will be posted as soon as the project has been presented.

With that experience under their belts, the HNC then got to take on the mentoring role by spending an afternoon in the studio with the fledgling NC group, looking over their postcard work - a series of double-sided A5s showcasing urban typography across Edinburgh.

sixty students + first week = Hands On

The first week back for our students, and as we've done for the past three years, we called upon our final year group to come up with an inspiring induction project, which would involved our NC, HNC and HND groups. The main aims of the induction week are to promote peer bonding, introduce our newbies to the studio process, and to have a bit of well-earned fun.

This year the project was 'Hands On' - dispensing with digital and computer work and focussing purely on a handmade design solution. Led by final year student Calum McKinnon, the project brought together 60 students, organised into in 11 teams, to carry out a series of ice-breaker activities and then tackle a two day brief. We supplied the group with a double lecture theatre space, plus £350 worth of art materials.



Calum's team arranged three increasingly surreal ice breakers:

Firstly, a 30 minute logo design to brand each team, using only paint, paper and pencils.

This was followed by a spagetti tower competition - with each team attempting to construct a spagetti tower made from 40 strands of spagetti, 1m of cellotape, and a single marshmallow (all in 10 minutes). Team 7, led by Mark Phillips, managed to break the 1 meter barrier, winning by 50mm.

The final ice breaker required the teams to create a bridge using only 4 pieces of A4 and 1m of cellotape, then balance as many Mars Bars as possible on it, across a 40cm gap. Team 8, led by HND student Craig Nicholson (clearly a closet architect) managed to balance a rather amazing 32 Mars Bars on their bridge. Worth trying at home.

The brief kicks off tomorrow - to create an inspirational campaign that promotes back to basics, ‘Hands On’ design. The teams have until 10am on Thursday to create their design, when they'll present to all groups.

Zoo Concepts

Earlier this week our intrepid One Week Agency project reached completion as all four student teams pitched their concepts to the Marketing Team at Edinburgh Zoo. This post features a small sample of visuals from each pitch.

One of these ideas will be selected by the client and taken forward to the development stage.

Team RAPP - '#zooisland'. Mentor - Jen Wood.










Team Lewis - '#theworldinoneplace'. Mentor - Ian Kirkby.











Team IL - '#youradventureawaits'. Mentor - Iain Lauder.











Team Heedi - 'One(sie)'. Mentor - Veronica Ferguson.

One Week Agency

Pics were taken by Derek Anderson using a Nikon D600.

A selection of images documenting the presentation day. We had four different creative teams all presenting in the same afternoon, at three different locations. Team RAPP presented in the RAPP studio in Leith, Team IL and Team Heedi presented in the College at Studio R310, and Team Lewis presented at the Lewis Agency, also in Leith. All four team will now present to Edinburgh Zoo on April 10th. Read more about the project here.

We love unzoosual clients

The One Week Agency project kicks off on Monday, and we can reveal that the client is Edinburgh Zoo.

Earlier this year we had a discussion with the Zoo's Marketing team about a possible collaboration as part of their Centenary celebrations. Opened in July 1913, Edinburgh Zoo is just a couple of miles to the west of Edinburgh city centre, and is home to more than 1,000 rare and endangered animals. The star attractions, the Giant Pandas, had already helped to increase footfall significantly this year, but the Marketing team were looking for a campaign targeted at twenty and thirty-somethings, traditionally the toughest sector to attract to zoos.

Our students visited the Zoo last Thursday to get their research started, and on Monday morning they'll sit down with their respective mentors to analyse the brief and get organised into their agency roles. And then we are off.

Monkey Business at Edinburgh Zoo for our Graphics students.

A RAPPturous week ahead

It's almost time to get ready. Has it really been twelve months since we ran our One Week Agency project?  Last year we piloted a one week educational experiment, splitting up our HND design students into two agency teams to work on a live client brief alongside an industry mentor. You can read more about that project here.

This year we're doing it all again, but with an even more ambitious remit.  We've assembled four student teams to work with four different industry collaborators - mentors Ian Kirkby (Lewis), Veronica Ferguson (Heedi), Iain Lauder (IL Design) and Jen Wood (RAPP).  Jen has also invited one team to take up residence in the RAPP studio for the whole week, where she and her agency colleagues will be providing authentic project support.

Last year the live brief was for Letts Diaries, this time around the work is for a major Edinburgh-based public attraction (the details of which we'll announce shortly). We'll be documenting each stage of the process with the four groups, and the presentations for the project will take place next Friday.  Then it's over to the client to make their decision!

One Week Agency runs from 18th-22nd March.

Getting the WOW factor

This year's College-wide induction theme is WOW - and the induction project for HND Visual Communication features a collaboration between Year 1 and Year 2.

Induction Brief : WOW
Design Studios are always trying to convince clients that their campaign idea or brief solution will have that ‘WOW’ factor.

Task
Your team is required to explore the WOW factor in any area of visual communication, and produce a finished piece which has the WOW effect

Guidelines
You can choose any medium for this work - print, web, video, installation, 3D, mixed media, packaging and so on – but the result has to be WOW.

This is a team project, but research, ideas and planning should be documented individually in your WOW Booklet.
HND 1 will lead the research and concept.
HND 2 will lead with planning, art direction and resources.

Suggested Workflow:
Tuesday - ice-breakers, inspiration, brief, brainstorm and teams.
Wed - action plan, resources, initial concepts, development
Thurs – development, locations (optional)
Friday – finalise and present.

Deliverables
The finished WOW piece.
Your WOW Induction booklet.

Deadline
Your team will present on Friday Sept 3rd