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.

Vinyl / Digital

Alongside their YCN and D&AD projects, our HNC group have been working on an interesting digital project. The class were asked to pick a famous 12" record sleeve, designed pre-1990, and to tell the story of the record and its design in a single scrolling webpage.

As luck would have it, the project coincided with a visit to Edinburgh by legendary sleeve designer Vaughan Oliver, who talked at the recent LongLunch event. A good number of the class turned up to see him talk about his seminal work for 4AD, and this provided plenty of creative inspiration. No-one actually chose a VO cover, but the range of selections included classic album artwork from David Bowie, Pattie Smith,and the Rolling Stones, through to the Sex Pistols, Joy Division, Blondie, Nirvana, Dela Soul, Meatloaf and not unsurprisingly, Pink Floyd.

We'll be inviting industry mentor Alan Lennon in to view the final designs sometime very soon, but in the meantime here is a sneak preview from the work of Emil Bloom, who chose the Beatles White album, and produced a fully responsive storyboard combining some nice typography and illustration.





You can also view the webpage.

Thursday was Pitch Day

Busy and inspired today, with mentor and former Creative Director at Redpath, Iain Lauder, sitting in on presentations for both our HNC and HND groups.

The HNC were pitching ideas for a top-secret project that will eventually become the promotional campaign for our 2013 final show (for which Iain will provide the Art Direction). The winning design came from Ryan Allan, who will work alongside Iain during April to get the campaign visuals ready for launch.

The presentations at 11am featured our final year students going through their D&AD solutions. Some of the students worked in teams this year, and the briefs they tackled included Batiste, Ted Baker, Dept. of Health, BBC, Nissan, and Unilever. This year a lot of the work is digital, both motion graphics and for devices, with a healthy dose of outdoor/guerrilla thrown in. The deadline for submission is next Friday, and sample work will be posted once the judging is underway.

Harry Ramsden's Re-Brand

Two excellent solutions for the MPA Roses Harry Ramsden's brief which we'd like to share with you, not just because they show two very different approaches, but also because unfortunately, neither were submitted to the competition. Plus, the work is by NC students Simon Griffiths and Alasdair Muir, who both still have two more years of study to go with us.

The brief was to make Harry Ramsden's relevant again, and "celebrate their past but define their future".

Simon went for a vintage retro concept that is popular right now on the web and looks traditional yet modern in print.







Alasdair opted for a cleaner, flat style which really captures the essence of the brief and looks very commercial.

Nice Work If You Can Get it

A great piece of typography from HND student Rowan Campbell, which she completed earlier this week whilst on placement at Edinburgh agency Contagious. The final work will be painted onto wooden slats and mounted on the wall inside the agency. This test run required 150 sheets of A3 to get exactly right.

Rowan is at Contagious for a further week, having spent the previous two weeks at editorial agency Editions.