AS Product Design Live Brief

2016 Salford Business Awards

AS Product Design students were set a live brief to design and manufactured the trophies for the annual business awards. Max Vogl’s design was picked overall and Sophie Stuart and Jack Small came close runners up. The students on the course submitted some fantastic designs and it was very hard to pick a winner, every single one of the final designs could have been made into the trophy for the event. The three students all enjoyed the evening at the AJ Bell Stadium and were treated to a three course meal and entertainment. It was really special watching each category winner receive their award and showed how important it was to get the design and the quality correct for the night. The photo above shows the three students with the host Elaine Willcox.

 

Architecture at Manchester University

Product Design and BTEC Art & Design students visited Manchester University to see the B.15:45 Architecture modelmaking exhibition which celebrated 45 years of the workshop. We were given a tour of the facilities by Jim Backhouse, the Senior Workshop Technician. The students had the opportunity to handle some of the 3D printed models and ask specific technical questions about the architecture course and equipment.

 

CocaCola Trip

AS & A2 Product Design students visited Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd Wakefield to view the manufacturing processes and quality assurance procedures in operation at the factory. The visit enabled the students to see first hand the theory they had been learning in the classroom.

Live Brief with Jacob from Creative Concern

Jacob D’Rozario is an ex-student who studies graphic design here at Pendleton. He now works at Creative Concern, a full service agency based in Manchester. Jacob asked to work with us in delivering a live brief for the students to work on, they would then shortlist a group of students and take them to the Creative Concern studio to pitch their ideas, see the studio and critique their portfolios. One winner will then be selected to go in for a placement in the February half term.

 

Jacob did a talk on his journey from college to his job at now as well as his side projects and how he got there. He then set the brief and did an ideas generation workshop with the students.

 

The students responded really well to this and now have a good starting point for their project which they have 4 weeks to complete. It’s great to have ex-stuedents back to talk about their success and inspire the students to keep pushing forwards.

App Design: Guest Lecture by Mark Scargill

Mark runs a Digital Design course at Salford University which specialises in areas such as UI design, UX design, App design and Web design as well as social media and integrated advertising. The Btec students have to design an app for their integrated ad campaign for their chosen issue and should any student wish to specialise more in the digital field this is a great course to go onto.

 

 

Mark came in and spoke to the students about the course, the requirements and what is covered and then did a workshop helping the students generate individual ideas for their app based on each of their campaigns. The students worked in groups to help come up with ideas for each other but also to see the different ideas and uses for apps.

 

Creating an effective awareness campaign: Guest lecture by Jane Bowyer from Raw

Jane Bowyer is senior designer at Raw Design Studio in Manchester. They are very ethical agency and only work with clients who fit their personal values. Jane herself has worked on a handful of awareness campaigns and is part of the “No More Page Three” campaign.

 

The students are currently doing an awareness campaign project on an Issue of their choice so Jane spoke about ethical advertising and standing up for what you believe in. She also spoke about the importance of only working on projects which fit your values, and if you are ever asked to do something that compromises those value then you have a the right to say no.

 Jane then did an ideas generation workshop with the students where they worked in groups, picked and issue and worked through her process of establishing a cause, current perceptions about the issue, what you want to change those perceptions to and then onto generating ideas and thumb-nailing them down on how to get that message across to the right people.
The students came up with some fantastic ideas that will carry through to the awareness campaign they create in their project.
Jane gave some great advice on ethical and sustainable design, the roles and responsibility of being a designer and how to work through ideas which the students responded to really well.

FDA Manchester Trip

First week of the Semester and we decided to take the new and returning FDA students on trip to Manchester City Centre so they could get to know the city, discover useful shops and places, plus get to know each other!

We took them around the Northern Quarter to see the street art, art shops such and Fred Aldous, book shops like Magma and The Richard Goodall Gallery. We also booked in to see Design by Day, a design agency in town where their studio manager Sami talked us through some work and showed us around the studio. Having these industry connections in vital in what we do and keeps our projects the skills be teach industry ready.

We then had a team building exercise in the form of bowling at Dog Bowl. It was a great game and everyone had fun. This was great way for the students to get to know each other but also for them to get to know the tutors and the tutors the students.

Iconic Product Design with Year 10

Thanks to all the year 10 students and school staff who took part in taster lessons in the Creative Arts & Design Department at Pendleton Sixth Form Centre this week. We had visits from the following schools and met some lovely students: Buile Hill, All Hallows, Albion High, Walkden High, Swinton High, Oasis, St Patricks, Mount St Joseph, Moorside High and Elsmere Park.

The Product Design lesson had the students recreating Iconic design –  The Chuck Taylor Converse Allstar was reverse engineered and recreated so that the students could adapt and customise the design in the future, all completed in 30mins…Amazing work everyone!

Designs Worthy of an Award!

AS Level Product Design students from Salford City College’s Pendleton Sixth Form Centre have demonstrated their sought after skills by designing the award that was given out to winners at this year’s Salford Business Awards. The students were set a live brief to design and make a set of trophies to be handed out at the prestigious event, which was held on 21^st May at the AJ Bell Stadium.

 

The brief was set by Jon Monk, Development Manager at The Business Group Salford. The Salford Business Awards is a prestigious annual event set up through the partnership of Salford Council, The University of Salford and The Business Group Salford, and the ceremony attracts national media attention to allow networking of thriving companies and to promote local innovation.

 

The importance of this design job was huge, with strict specifications regarding the corporate branding of the event’s sponsors. The design of the trophies had to incorporate an ‘identity of Salford’ to celebrate ten award categories, each with a winner and a runner-up.

 

Three students, George Cordwell, Ben Aspden and Sean Smith, worked as a group to design the final product. The awards were all made in-house at Pendleton Sixth Form Centre, and incorporated a strict quality control procedure to mimic industrial process.

 

Andrew Paslowski, Head of Creative Arts at Pendleton Sixth Form Centre, commented: “It was great to see the students’ confidence growing and their professional working practice being developed when liaising with each other and, more importantly, the client. The students worked amazingly hard putting in lots of extra time to ensure the deadline and budget were both met.”

 

At the event, the students were publicly thanked, and were introduced to the night’s host, BAFTA award-winning journalist Elaine Wilcox, and Paul Mason, the economics editor at Channel 4 News. Paul spoke with them at length about their work and what career pathways they wanted to pursue after college, and offered them advice.

 

Following the success of the event and the positive feedback received from all of the award recipients, the Product Design students at Salford City College have already been asked to produce the trophies for next year’s awards.

FDA Design Students – Exhibition 11

On Wednesday 3rd June our Graphic Design Degree students hosted their end or year exhibition at Apotheca in Manchester City Centre. The students independently curated the exhibition showcasing their work from this year.

It was very successful evening with a nice flow of friends, family and industry professionals coming through the doors throughout the night.

See the Exhibition 11 website for a link to the students involved.

We wish the students all the best for their future endeavors and thank everyone who came down to support them!