Entrepreneurial spirit shines through at Staffordshire University Arts Media and Design Award Show 2012

Many of the students I spoke to at their ‘Show and Tell’ Award Show 2012 had either already secured employment or internships, or were going into business for themselves. Some enterprising students had already set up their own companies whilst at university. For those who hadn’t yet found a job, they remained positive that the strong links between the university, alumni and industry would help them to secure paid employment.

BA (hons) Graphic Design students Andy Taylor and Richard Evans set up their own visual communications company, Dead Pixel Creative, in their second year, with clients including Age Concern UK. They both agree that completing the course has altered their approach to their own business, taking them in a more strategic and commercial direction.

Richard’s project around the theme of ‘Networks’ was an impressive scale world map of underwater communication pipes, painstakingly pinned and threaded together. Andy’s self-negotiated piece on bacteria in humans used large Petri dishes to culture bacteria into the shape of the human body.

The trend for crafted work continued throughout the Graphic Design and Illustration exhibition space, with two students displaying the tactile project that won them a D&AD Best of Year student award. Ben Lambe and Ryszard Hajkowicz submitted their innovative whiskey bottle format, with laser-cut solid oak lid, into the Packaging Design category, and were thrilled to win. Ben said: “We wanted to step away from the computer and make something we could touch and feel."

Other award-worthy work was featured by Melanie Milne, who was a runner-up in the Roses Student Creativity Awards with her unusual work on Brussels sprouts!

Illustration student Rebecca Clemson’s beautiful work instantly attracted; the attention to detail in her quilling work on the Great Barrier Reef was stunning. Her pottery designs were also unique and contemporary, and she has secured a grant from the University to establish her ceramic work into a business here in the Potteries.

Over in Media Production, 6 enterprising students have set up their own production company, Three Headed Monster, with commercial projects already lined up for the summer. Andy Salamonczyk, James Parsons, Ciaron Craig, Abdurahman Hale, Jake Hiorns and Jon White have worked on over 20 films this year alone.

One of Andy’s short films, Dawid and Dominik, was a touching yet humorous tale of a young polish boy, searching for the perfect woman for his father. The film has already won several awards in the UK; Shooting People’s Film of the Month March 2012, Your Manchester Fund Audience Award and Best UK Short (runner-up) at Staffordshire Film Festival. It has been screened in India as part of a WorldKids Foundation Initiative, and is up for an award at Wyoming Film Festival this August. You can watch the film here.

Also attracting global recognition on Vimeo is the work of seven Visual Effects (VFX) students; Hollie Price, Sidney Thibaul, Simon Stirrup, Sam Serridge, Jack Bosworth, Jack Milton and Pedrom Dadgostar. Their Lego Inception trailer has received over 1.5 million hits, from over 200 countries, in the 2 weeks since it was first posted online. Their course leader Huw Thomas said “The reaction to this has been phenomenal. It’s great for the students, the course and the wider University as we’re being talked about worldwide.” The Lego Trailer can be seen here.

Other students hoping for international success were Paul Chandler and Philippa Baminger, from Advertising and Brand Management. They demonstrated their polished pitching skills, talking me through a variety of work including live briefs, competition briefs and self-negotiated work. Having been a key member of the EdCom Ad Venture team who won at the Cannes Advertising Festival last year, Philippa’s work this year has been shortlisted for the B-Hive Student Competition.

Paul’s tongue-in-cheek campaign for Skoda was well thought-out, with printed booklets featuring alongside online strategies offering helpful phrases for men to use when persuading their wife to choose the brand; “With this MPG, we can visit your mother more!” His self-negotiated project for Levis demonstrated a really integrated approach and showed how a great idea can work across multiple platforms, using social media channels to promote a campaign to revitalise the brand.

A lot of the work displayed a high level of maturity and commercial awareness, which the students attributed to their industrial experience gained at placements and workshops in agencies in London and New York, including Fallon, Bandujo and Crayon.

In other areas, work was of a similar high standard, with exhibitions taking place in studios, galleries and out on the road as part of a ‘Fringe’ element of the show. The strong work ethic of the students was evident throughout, and will surely stand them in good stead for the future. Dr Astrid Herhoffer, Dean of the Faculty, commented, “The work on display has not been created in a vacuum, but within the standards and expectations of industry. Our graduates leave us not only armed with an enormous amount of knowledge and skills but also with an entrepreneurial spirit and commercial awareness that will be very obvious to future employers. They leave us as self-motivated young people who – I am confident – will make it in the world out there.”

Here is a group of students not content to wait for their moment to shine. They are taking their futures into their own hands; creating opportunities, securing industry placements, promoting themselves and working hard to carve out careers in a competitive industry.

You can take a look at more of the work from the show on the faculty's website.