UAL students reflect on storytelling collaboration with Creative Shift, venturethree and NOW
- Written byAlexandra R. Cifre / Annika Loebig
- Published date 18 February 2022
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UAL students recently had the opportunity to work with independent global brand company, venturethree (v3) and NOW, one of Europe’s largest entertainment streaming services, offering students the chance to work to a live brief — a collaboration facilitated by UAL's Creative Shift.
Tasked with the challenge of helping NOW stand out from their competitors amid the Streaming Wars, students developed creative campaigns using the power of storytelling to champion the company's values and their mission to create diverse and compelling experiences for their audiences.
To find out what they took away from this collaboration, we spoke to 6 of the students involved in the project:
Bhairavi "Bee" Yogasivam, BA (Hons) Architecture at Central Saint Martins
Charlotte Morton, BA (Hons) Media Communications at London College of Communication
Charmiane Mayibongwe Chikiwa, BA (Hons) Production Arts for Screen at Wimbledon College of Arts
Malaya Rhiann Edwards-Roberts, BA (Hons) Film and Television at London College of Communication
Rokhaya Doucoure, BA (Hons) Graphic and Media Design at London College of Communication
Sidra Nabeel, BA (Hons) Graphic Design at Camberwell College of Arts
Hi everyone! In this project with venturethree and NOW you worked in teams to tackle a real-life client brief. What did you enjoy the most about collaborating with other students from different disciplines?
Bee: This experience has changed my previous assumptions I had about group work for so long. When we first started, we were all trying to find our feet and then in just a week we came up with a great idea and it all started feeling a bit like a domino effect. My favourite part was definitely collaborating with a group of creative people, and bouncing off each other’s ideas – I didn’t know it would be this fun!
Rhiann: My highlight was having the opportunity to meet and work with other great students and creatives. Teamwork was an important part of this project, and we all played key roles within each group – I really enjoyed being part of the brainstorming sessions, helping each other come up with ideas as a team. We developed a loving bond that I wasn’t expecting in the beginning; we still keep in touch now and have become really great friends!
Charlotte: Because we all came in with different skillsets, I feel like I’ve learned something from everyone involved in this project, especially from the mentors and working directly with NOW and v3. I think the research week was most helpful, because I’ve always struggled to incorporate the research process into what I do; I normally just go along and see how things go, but being part of this project taught me how to do research properly – it’s something that will come in handy when I have to write essays, and also in the future if I work on client briefs.
What new skills and knowledge do you think you’ve gained thanks to this experience?
Sidra: I’ve definitely strengthened my communication skills, not only in the ways in which we interacted within our group but also with the industry partners, taking in feedback and asking questions to make my design work stronger. Over the course of this project, I’ve improved my confidence to ask questions and raise my voice as a designer.
Charmiane: I agree, I’ve also gained a lot of new skills during this project, and I think time management is definitely the one that I’ll value the most going forward. Also, prototyping and how to go about the creative process to generate ideas was really helpful. Sometimes, in my own practice I find I’m really slow at starting out because I would have all these ideas but I wouldn’t know how to break them down and test them to see if they’re good; seeing how this project was structured really helped me to have a better sense of how I should approach the creative process in my career.
Bee: I’m studying Architecture and the way we do things is very different in terms of process. It was very nice to be part of this design-based challenge that wasn’t completely related to my course, which was actually quite refreshing. There was quite a lot of pressure because we were working on a live brief, but I also enjoyed it because we were working on something creative.
Creative Shift is dedicated to creating opportunities like this one with NOW and venturethree. How do you think it’s beneficial for you, as students, to collaborate with industry partners during your time at university?
Rokhaya: I think it’s so important for us to be involved in live brief projects because it helps us to open the doors to new opportunities. We also get to see what we can expect when we leave university and what the work will be like once we’re part of the industry, so it’s like a little step in-between uni and the working world. Also, being able to collaborate with people we wouldn’t actually get the chance to while studying helps us to build key skills like communication, confidence, team building and being able to speak up. Collaboration is something we need in the world.
Charlotte: For me, it’s been very beneficial to know how to network with people already working in the industry and with other fellow creatives. Obviously, last year we didn’t have any face-to-face interaction with other students or our tutors or anyone, so it’s been great getting to meet all these people. Also, in my work as a freelancer, sometimes I’m not good at communicating with professional people because I only see myself as a student, so it was great to get an insight into how to talk to other creatives who are not students.
Rhiann: University is probably the best time to trial and test your skills, and to experience new things because you have the support network from your fellow colleagues. I'd also say it helps us establish realistic expectations about what’s out there in the industry and for our future - thanks to experiences like this one, where we get to collaborate with external businesses and other people, we now know what to do and how to act when working in a professional setting. It’s a nice teaser of what that could be like once we finish our studies.
Sidra: It’s nice to have a controlled access to industry. You wouldn't necessarily get this if you weren't at university, you wouldn't really get to experience a specific company or brand for 8 weeks. It's nice to dip your toes into an industry that you're not entirely sure if you would want to be in. Personally, I have no real idea about what I want to do after university and which direction to go in, so it's been really helpful to get access to different companies through the Creative Shift programme, which I think is something really unique to UAL.
How did you find the process of working with Abraham Asefaw as your creative coach during this project?
Bee: Abraham gave us structure and the creative freedom to work together and bring the project to life. It felt good to know that even if your ideas weren’t solid, he pushed us to communicate them, flesh them out through software like Miro boards and then discuss them later in our groups.
Sidra: It was really nice to have somebody there with a vested interest in us. While the industry partners were overseeing the project and monitoring how it was coming along, he helped us work together and get the most out of the process. I think it was helpful to have someone who not only focused on what we were doing, but also how we felt about the project while it was going on.
Rokhaya: Having a Abraham as our mentor throughout the whole programme, guiding us and giving us consistency and structure, really helped just to develop and refine our own design process. I really believe being part of this experience has put us on the right path to learn how we should respond to similar challenges in the future, whether it’s in another live brief project or in our careers. Collaborating with a group of designers also just helped us see different perspectives of where our ideas could go, or how we could build up on it in a way that we wouldn't necessarily think of before.
Some of you had worked with Creative Shift before. What would you highlight from your experiences of being part this programme?
Charmiane: This is my second Creative Shift project and it was a lot of fun. I remember during my last project, there were a couple of people who said they found it hard to meet people because of COVID, so it’s nice to have the chance to pop on Zoom, get to know everyone outside of the briefing project and learn about their creative practice.
Charlotte: I love getting the chance to meet so many supportive members of staff and students, and being able to collaborate with people from different areas of the creative industry that I would have never met otherwise. It's the first time I've properly connected with anyone outside of my course, so I think that was really great.
Creative Shift connects industry partners with underrepresented students to help shape a more diverse creative industry. Find out more about how you can get involved or email creativeshift@arts.ac.uk for more information.
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