This is the logo we created to represent our 'Hands On' induction week. We initially made the logo using a mixture of oil pastels combined with multi-coloured paints. The finished result was then photocopied substituting all colour for magenta.
Having a great amout of support from our college tutors Helena Good, Chris Hughes and Alex Gunn meant there was a perfect budget to fund the concept for the week. Materials purchased included numerous bottles of paint, chalk pastels, spaghetti and mars bars.
From the induction week, our team had a specific set of goals we aimed to achieve. Priority was in building a Creative Community amongst all the years in our course whilst welcomming the NC group to the design process.
There were approx. 60 students accross three years of our course NC, HNC and HND. All of whom were split into mixed teams of between 4/5 people and given a questionnaire to ask each other and start the creative ball rolling.
An initial ice breaking session began with some 'Hands On' crafty, team logo designs. We then set two 15 minute challenges involving spaghetti, marshmallows, paper and sellotape. These loostened the atmosphere and generated a brilliant sense of team work from everyone. Some of the work can be seen below.
The challenge here was to build the tallest, free standing tower out of : 40 strands of spaghetti, 1m of sellotape and 1 marshmallow. The time limit was 15 minutes and the only restriction was that the marshmallow must sit at the top of the tower.
Initially everyone seemed baffled believing this would be impossible. However, after some thought everyone got stuck in and different teams had different tactics. Above you can see a team effort.
Other teams set about multiple different tactics giving them a larger possibility for success.
Our second challenege was to build the sturdiest bridge to span across a 40cm gap using only 4 sheets of A4 paper and 1m of sellotape.
The time limit was 15 minutes and the only restriction was that the bridge could not be sellotaped to the table.
Sturdiness of the bridges was measured by the bridge that could hold the most mars bars.
The winner held over 25 mars bars!
All teams were then set a brief : To create an inspirational campaign that promoted back to basics, 'Hands On' design. Focussing on the design process and not jumping onto software. No digital submissions would be accepted.
We had some really wacky and inspiring ideas. Team Platypus presented without saying a word ... They simply played a short viral compilation of all their 'Hands On' work.
Other teams set about building some inspirational, step by step guides about the design process and how it could be completed without any digital help.
A haunting entry here created with only paint and a photocopier. All you need is your head and your hands.
Down with Adobe. A great campaign making software the enemy.
A lovely submission here. Lets Go Back was the concept shown across many different posters all built from different 'Hands On' techniques and materials.
A very visually pleasing submission here. This definitely shows that you do not need the digital influence to put your mind into creating something brilliant.
Finally, we have the winning submission. This team created a truly inspiring solution in which they took the words 'Hands On' and built them out of anything they could possibly think of. More detail can be seen below.
Amazing to have come from a group of people so early in their design career - some of whom had just joined us from high school.
At the end of the week, everyone who took part was asked to give us some feedback about the success of the induction week. The response was fantastic, one of our HND students had even said "I have been involved in three years worth of induction weeks and this years was by far the best". A brilliant achievement for me and the team. Also a very rewarding experience to know we had helped a group of students become inspired to begin the course at a running jump and built the starting foundations of a strong Creative Community.
