David Hiddleston’s Blog

The Graphic Design team at Edinburgh’s Telford College have been building on our established links within the design industry. Following on from the success of our Industry Night in May of last year, we decided to continue developing our relationships with design professionals. With this in mind we introduced a Mentoring programme as part of our HND Visual Communication – Graphic Design course and invited leading members of the design industry, many of whom we have worked with on an occasional basis, to take on the role of mentors to our final year students.

Background

There has been a growing recognition of the value to our students, and indeed to the design profession, in establishing and developing a working relationship between education and industry. In the past we have employed visiting lecturers, visited agencies and students have been given practical work experience. However for many agencies their first contact with students was still at end of year exhibitions, or when the graduated students knocked on their doors, folio in hand, seeking employment.

Mentoring

We looked at ways this could be changed and how we could bridge the gap by introducing a more structured commitment from our students and from those leading members of the design industry through a mentoring programme. We sent out a request to many of the agencies that we had worked with before, through work placements, and others that we thought might be interested in becoming involved. We offered them the opportunity to guide and influence students in a way which, we hoped, would prepare them for employment within the Design industry as effective and creative people. We were in a way appealing to their better nature by asking them to “give a bit back”. We were delighted with the response and were able to allocate 2 students to each Mentor.

The Programme

Sept 08 – Mentors and students meet - At the start of the academic year the six mentors and 12 students met for the first time. As part of the introduction the students were asked to present a poster that incorporated two truths and a lie, relating to themselves. It was up to the  Mentor to guess which one was the lie!

Sept 08 - Smart Cookies – throughout the year the students sent their Mentors different gifts – cookies, Easter Eggs etc. Oct 08 - Mentor Brief – The Mentors set their students a creative brief, resulting in the student group working in pairs across a range of briefs. These ranged from reassuring Bank customers to branding a Type Museum. The final designs was presented to the Mentor and feedback given and a brief critique produced for the College

Jan 09 - Second meeting – a chance for the Mentors to see all the work that had been completed for the different projects as well as advising their students as they prepared their portfolios in anticipation for work experience. They also gave them some guidance in relation to one or two design competitions during the term. Feb 09 – Work Placement – All of the students took part in our Work Placement scheme in February, with most of them going to two separate placements over the four week period. A number of the agencies involved in the mentoring programme took students on placement.Sept 08 to April 09 - Guerilla Days – Ian Kirby and Scott Millar were involved in a number of Guerilla days which involved them turning up unannounced to the College, giving a brief out at 9am and returning at 4.30 to crit the work.April 09 - Third meeting – now that the students had settled into the working methodologies of their Mentors . . . we swapped them around, giving them a chance to tap into different advice and working practices. They met and received advice on the work they were involved with as part of their final project.May 09 - Industry Night 21^st May – Out of the Blue Gallery. A chance for the Mentors and other creatives to view the students’ final personal projects shortly before completion, and offer advice before they concluded their work for their final show at the end of College session.

June 09 - Final Exhibition 5^th June – Edinburgh’s Telford College

Why Mentoring?

We believe this mentoring programme provides our students with a valuable opportunity to work with practising creatives on an ongoing basis and gain a deeper insight into the design industry, prior to their transition from education to employment. It has been a valuable, stimulating and enjoyable experience and has given the students a lot of confidence in themselves, helping to allay some of their fears regarding that big step into a work environment.It has also been an enriching experience for the tutors at ETC, and shows us that our courses and our delivery are very much in step with the needs of industry, and are helping to create employable, confident graduates. Finally, we believe that the experience has been enjoyable for the Mentors themselves, and the feedback we have received has been very positive and encouraging. It is very rewarding to know that there are so many creatives out there who are keen to assist up and coming designers in this way, fitting the Mentoring work into their already busy schedules.

We would like to thank our 2008/09 Mentors for their tremendous efforts, valuable input and their encouraging words. If you are interested in getting involved in the Graphic Design Mentoring initiative at ETC, please email helena.good@ed-coll.ac.uk or david.hiddleston@ed-coll.ac.uk

Here’s what the Drum magazine via the web said - Full Article click here or drum.pdf

This entry was posted on Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 8:58 am and is filed under Graphic Design, New Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.