A few words i've sent to the press office.

The Sofa Design team had the Leek Post and Times photographer in today - well done you lot for spreading your message around. In the meantime, I've just penned a few words for our Press Office:

“a key feature of the Advertising and Brand Management course is the link with industry on a regional, national and international level. This link has enabled our students to work closely with advertising agencies and brand consultancies from Staffs to new York via London and Glasgow. The advantage this gives our students is reflected in the way their working practices evolve over three years to reflect current practice in industry. Our students develop confidence in presentation and strategy-led portfolios that give them an edge in the marketplace.

As well as engaging with industry, our students are encouraged to seek out clients and to enter competitions, particularly at Level 3. This year Level 3 students have engaged on various levels with external clients. One team that has had a successful experience with an external client was Sam Nuttall, Dan Needham, Shib Hussain and Adam Lowe. They worked very hard from initial contact through establishing their client’s needs, writing a brief and developing a brand identity (with accompanying guidelines) and a communications strategy that has been implemented by Sofa Design, a bespoke furniture company based in London. The students have worked with the client very closely and will continue to engage with them in a consultancy role ensuring brand guidelines and communications are adhered to in the short term.

The most successful team to engage in national competitions was Sian Wood and Jamie Charman who reached the final of the Constellation Wine Group’s Innovator of the Year Award. Their idea for a simplified wine brand to stand out in the cluttered markeplace was selected as one of the final six entries. The students pitched their idea to representatives from Constellation at the Gherkin in London on 29 May and will hear back on Monday 1st June. The students developed a strategy that included new products and interactive media after thoroughly researching the marketplace, understanding the target audience, and recognising a clear gap in the wine market.

These are two examples of where our students have met with success this year. There are others, one team has helped a bio-fuels company brand and market itself, another team are heading off to New York to work at an agency we have a working relationship with, and we still have the D&AD New Blood show to look forward to where ten selected students will show their work alongside the cream of the UK’s advertising and graphic design courses.”

And Sian and Jamie pitched at the Gherkin today .... good luck you two.

Update from Yes

This link takes you to Yes Agency's Blog. Scroll down a couple of posts and you'll find a few words about our pitch for the website redesign last week. Well done Lauren and Becki (again).

http://blog.yesagency.co.uk/

Ohhhhh ... Vienna .... dum dumdumdum (for those who remember Ultravox)

The EFCCE Conference in Vienna went very well. We were rushed but managed to pack in a lot of work at the expense of sightseeing. Judging the Final of the Student Competition was a good experience. A team from Austria (Werbe Akademie, Vienna) won and very good they were too. The runners-up (Berlin and Bucharest) were also good entires although the better of the two was Berlin by a long chalk. The Viennese team used the theme of first love to sell the idea of eco-awareness in car buying for 18-35 year olds. The idea was strong, crossed media successfully and was very professionally presented.

I gave a presentation on a collaboration between Yes Agency and ABM, also looking at community marketing and ideas related to community in the process. And then chaired a panel on Teaching Creativity where one speaker (Yvonne Koert from Avans Hogeschol in Breda) looked at pedagogical approaches - a theme we'd explored previously in workshops at the Breda meeting - and another (Georgia Millopoulou from Athens) looked at attitudes to creativity amongst creatives in Greek ad agencies. Great ideas but little time for questions unfortunately.

Informally we also began to set the agenda for a pan-European online brief to take place in October. We're not there with it yet but at least we have a feel for how it will function.

There'll be photos and news relating to it on the EFCCE website soon so I'll link to it when I can.

Lock-out Day ... this is it folks.

It's been a busy few days and there's nothing more that can be done for assessment. Studios are locked and we begin assessing tomorrow. The work is up, but we still have to sort out online and physical portfolios and printing for D&AD. Majority have worked really hard and I'm sure most will be successful in the future.

Another bit of good news today was notification of Sian Wood and Jamie Charman having reached the Finals of the Constellation Wine Group Innovation Competition. They now have to pitch their ideas at the Gherkin in London on Friday 29th May. I'll be there with them ... so fingers crossed.

Some pics of the show going up and the Uni Press Officer taking photos:

quicky before Vienna

I wasn't going to update until Monday but lest I forget, we had a pitch for a live brief with Yes Agency today. 2 Level 1 teams and 1 Level 2 team presented their ideas for reworking Yes's website. Some good ideas and a winning team made up of Lauren Penny and Becki Moore. Well done you two, I want to take a photo of you with your certificates. I'll link up to Yes's blog when the pictures are up.

Day 2 of the build ...

Day 2 of the build continued s..l..o..w..l..y.. but we're nearly there now. Walls built and nearly all painted. Tomorrow should see the space ready for putting work up.











I'll update the blog after the weekend - following on from the EFCCE Conference in Vienna (much to report, I guess) and once the work goes up. In the meantime here are some of the images selected to go in the Degree Show Showcase in The Drum:

Degree show prep has started and not without it's teething problems. We're having 2 walls built in the main studio that will remain permanent and will enable the creation of a brand room for next year. Lo and behold, not enough was ordered but we're over that now. Grey paint instead of white ... K9 is staying grey now! Students were messy, but cleaned up after themselves - hurrah! And we had the first proper D&AD New Blood meeting.

Here's some pics of the days events. Not very exciting and I did use the wrong lens, but never mind.

Let's get the degree show started.

The process starts today. 10am, paintbrushes will be dipped and walls will be painted. Photos will appear later, both here and on FaceBook. We have an editorial, ad and showcase going into the Drum with our very own Chloe Smith writing the editorial. I'll link to it when the Degree Show issue comes out.

Activities, activities

We don't just get the students out and about on this course, you know? The staff are doing different things too. Just because the academic year has slowed down for Levels 1 and 2, myself and Paul are on with stuff.

14-16 May is the annual EFCCE Conference. Both of us will be in attendance in Vienna. Not content with soaking up the Viennese hospitality (and viennese whirls too) I will be giving a presentation in collaboration with Amanda from Yes. The presentation will work on 2 levels - 1. the collaboration between industry and academia / 2. new demographics. More info closer to the event.

I'm also involved in a collaborative project with Yvonne Koert from the Avans Hogeschol in Breda on Teaching Creativity and judging the final of the student competition.

Hopefully time for a beer or two and setting a brief for a live interactive collaboration between Staffs Uni, Avans Hogeschol Breda, Werbe Akademie Vienna and others for October. This will involve incoming Final year students from our institutions teaming up virtually for a pan-European one-day brief. Watch this space.

Meanwhile link up by clicking on the following link:

http://www.eacaeducation.eu/?page=conference_2009