Meet, Make, Do

Students from the BA (Hons) Graphic Arts & Design course were yesterday involved in creating a pop-up shop in Stockport Town Centre as part of the teenage market initiative. Meet, Make, Do  focuses on promoting entrepreneurial partnerships. The graphic design students have one-to-one meetings with business owners in Stockport to discuss their marketing and design needs and then the students spent the day responding to this. In the afternoon students pitch their ideas to their client. The client paid for the idea which best suits their needs.

Rosemary and John Barret who run Glass Umbrella, an organisation which promotes activities in the market place said that the students and the clients enjoyed the day and both got an enormous amount from it. The pop-up shop continues on Friday where more businesses stand to benefit from a focused design solution for their businesses.

Student designer, Lyndsey Hall, said, “Our day working at the Glass Umbrella has really benefited me as I now have more knowledge about working for real clients. The project made me realise that in the industry there will be very strict deadlines and by working in a team you are able to meet these deadlines by co-operating and working as hard as possible. I really enjoyed the project as I had chance to collaborate with my peers who I hadn't yet worked with. It was a great chance to see the different styles and techniques of working combine into one. From the project I have continued to work along side my client to produce flyers, a new logo and packaging design. There is also a mention about designing a catalogue for his second business in the near future!”

 

Local business owner, Mike, of Jewel on the Hill said, “For an old dinosaur, very much set in his ways, like me, it was good and probably necessary too to get a younger generation’s view on how to help and improve my business with promotional flyers, ideas, Facebook presence etc, etc. I have been greatly impressed with Lyndsey and Jess’ team efforts and the flyer design they have come up with for the shop. I have had quite positive responses to my enquiries and they have improved on ideas that I have suggested. I hope to continue to work with them on further projects too. I hope their input and involvement becomes very much part of Stockport’s future.”

 

Programme Leader of the course, Lucy Brown, said "We're really excited about the success of this project and hope to run it again in coming years. Not only has it been of benefit to local businesscommunity tremendously, it has also been invaluable experience for our students both on the grounds of creative development and also entrepreneurial skill.” The School of Arts, Design & Media, Stockport College University Centre pride themselves on building strong links with the local community through responding to real design problems.