Above, is student agency work from before my time. While the work itself was satisfactory, it lacked cohesiveness, and the absence of branding necessitated students to begin each project anew every semester. To address this issue, I actively sought opportunities to create branded aesthetics for clients, enabling students to incorporate them creatively in their projects. This approach also empowered students to pursue "passion projects" that clients hadn't specifically requested but that would be valuable additions to their portfolios. In this way, even if the clients didn't fully appreciate these additional works, we still successfully fulfilled all the tasks they had initially asked for, and often went above and beyond their expectations during the semester.
This typography solution was created by a talented student during my first semester as the Creative Faculty Advisor to the agency. When I saw it I knew it could work as a potential branded look for ongoing work. I had the students in future semesters continue the theme.
A similar solution for their sister restaurant, a classic diner.
Which then allowed us time to work on a t-shirt design idea we had for them. They have a famous menu item called the "dirty dog" (or at least we're trying to make it famous). And we thought it would be the perfect local purchase for people visiting or those who live in the area. So we've started working on some t-shirt ideas. Here's one so far.
LOGO REDESIGN
In my first semester, the students redesigned the vet's logo. Since then they've worked on a couple of unique projects including some fun face masks and these yard signs that their clients absolutely loved. We're also exploring t-shirt ideas for this client just for fun.
We've also had some fun with ads for our swim client. Here are some of the concepts from last year and this recent semester. I think the ones for this semester that were trying to encourage members to sign their kids up for lessons are really strong conceptually but need some work on the layout and type. Sometimes, a semester just isn't enough. The good news is we will revisit these before we send them off for entry to contest or finalize them for portfolios.
Click here to read more about my time as an advisor with Live Oak.