The Power of Colour – Meet the Arctic Paper: Munken Agenda 2021 winners

Second year BA Graphic Design Communication students at Chelsea College of Arts have had the fantastic opportunity to work on this year's live brief for Arctic Paper, designing the Munken Agenda 2021.

Distributor Arctic Paper collaborates with a different creative institution each year to create the Munken Agenda, a unique design project providing a year’s worth of inspiration while highlighting the supreme paper quality of the Munken design range.

The commission to work on this year’s edition was won by students Georgie Wade, Daisy Peters and Georgie Sullivan, whose theme The Power of Colour focuses on self-care and mental health and the power of colour to improve our moods. The agenda is much more than a diary: it introduces the concept of colour breathing, a stress reducing exercise whereby you visualise colour based on how you are feeling.

We spoke to winners Georgie, Daisy and Georgie as well as BA Graphic Design Communication year leader and practitioner Peter Chadwick about their experiences working on the project.

Peter oversaw the delivery of the brief with second year students and describes how the opportunity arose as well as the buzz of working to a 3-week deadline with the students.

“I was approached by Vanessa Fletchera BA Graphic Design Communication graduate, in late 2019 to see if the year 2 cohort would like to take part in the Munken Agenda competition brief.

Vanessa has been working for the paper company GF Smith for several years now has regularly worked across all year groups and has taken students (pre-covid) into GF Smith - who distribute the Arctic Paper Munken range - to view and discuss paper stock”.

Here to tell us more about the winning design and their experiences of the Munken Agenda 2021 are, Georgie, Daisy and Georgie:

Why did the Munken Agenda project appeal to you?

“The Munken agenda project first appealed to us because we all have a passion for print and editorial design, and we also know we work well as a group.

Prior to choosing this brief we looked into Arctic Paper as a company and felt that their ethos of sustainability aligned with our own ideals. It also appealed to us because it was a real challenge and the competitive element drove us to work harder and produce something important. Plus, it was a collective dream of ours to have work that has been printed and published on a large scale.’

Did you enjoy the experience?

“Overall, the experience of the project was very enjoyable but also challenging to say the least. The first stages of the project were experimental, and our ideas were changing and evolving constantly. The closer to the deadline we got, the more we felt the element of competition and the stress of producing something that would win over Arctic Paper and G.F Smith.

Once we had presented and won, we felt a huge sense of relief and the challenging work felt worth it. Following on from that, working with the company to produce the full diary during the pandemic was challenging since we could not collaborate in person or work together without using video chat. Every time we needed to make amendments, we would have to package and send documents back and forth.”

Working in a group, was it easy to get all your ideas across in a cohesive way?

“As a group we individually have varying skill sets and areas of expertise, which allowed us to effectively collaborate and bring something that resembled all of our creative styles to fruition. We all work well as part of a team, with the patience to listen to each other's ideas, and the honesty and respect to trust each other with the process. Working as a group was hugely beneficial for this project, as it allowed us to share the workload and meet deadlines effectively.”

Are you pleased with the outcome of the project?

“We are very happy with the final agenda and, as Arctic Paper had pointed out, the concept could not be more relevant than it is right now in these trying times. There were some elements of the design that we did have to compromise on due to the nature of how the diary is formatted and bound. We have learnt that as designers you also have to accommodate for your clients wishes, and not just your own ideal design, so it was helpful to work with the company to produce something that was an appropriate representation of both their company and our own design style.”

How did you feel about being the winners and having your work published?

“We were ecstatic when we found out that we had won, and it was great news amid the circumstances of the pandemic and impending lockdown. It's almost surreal to be given an opportunity as a second-year university student to have a work published and sent all over Europe.

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