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Month: October 2016
Flux Video Pitch
Almost as good as the lady who reads the travel announcements on Radio 2.
Zarna – Hi! We’re Flux. As students of Cardiff Met, it’s important that our environment is somewhere to interact, somewhere to feel relaxed, and something that helps us to engage with the world around us.
Aaron – For us, it was about more than planting new trees and being eco-friendly. The environment involves our wellbeing, our general health, and our sense of belonging.
Rhys – We would love to show you what we’ve been working on. Please watch and enjoy our video,
(video pitch)
Gavin – We hope you enjoyed our video! As previously mentioned, it is key to create a real sense of community through better relationships across the different schools.
Charlotte – Flux means ‘a state of change’. So it was only obvious that we created a dynamic and vibrant visual identity. This concept then branches out to the physical space as we bring to life different activities, and house a range of purposes.
Rhys – Flux will facilitate events, meetings, and socialisation. We’ve thought of some scenarios that would work best, such as meet-ups during freshers, fundraising events, pop-up stalls, tutorials, or Cardiff Met SU society events.
Aaron – By tackling the problem of unused space around the campus, and providing a multipurpose environment that reaches across the whole campus, this will result in a better campus life for the students of Cardiff Metropolitan University.
Gavin – Please feel free to ask any questions, and come visit our space after the presentation.
ERRRRRRYBODY – Thanks!
Our Pitch – Flux
Flux – Reinventing Social Space. That’s our tagline it seems, and everything we’ve worked on in the simplest sentence imaginable. It works though.
Here’s everything we had for our pitch.
Pitch Day!
So we put together a video, practiced our pitch, wrote our script, and were ready. It went amazingly well, I was dead chuffed. All of our individual efforts came together really well, and we put our space together which really was the cherry on top at the end.
Our video pitch was simple as we are not architects so our abilities in this area were limited – but everyone seemed to be really won over by our idea. Something that was repeatedly said to us was how the campus was in dire need of such a space. Hopefully something comes out of it in the end!
It would be pretty nice to come back as a mentor in a few years time on the Real World project and be able to say, “You know flux? That was our Real World project.”
Flux – Brand?
Zarna and I have been working on creating a simple gif logo that we think really demonstrates the purpose of the space. It ties together the whole dynamism, multipurpose thing really well. These were some similar logos we had seen, and some designs that seemed to focus on simple changes to suit changes in purpose/event/time/date etc.
We wanted something that really demonstrated the word flux itself. I drew some really organic shapes that chop and change, but they’re lucid enough that it doesn’t tie them to any one thing in particular. Through simple changes in colour and shape we think it really shows what we want flux to be. A social space that facilitates change.
I think it works well because of its simplicity. It does what it says it’s going to do, and shows simply that the space can suit a range of different purposes, maintaining a vibrant and dynamic appearance which is something we really wanted to achieve. After all, it is for students, so we wanted it to be appropriate whilst also sitting well within the Cardiff Metropolitan University branding.
FLUX – It’s all coming together
So after divvying up the responsibilities of who was doing what etc., I was working on how flux may look visually, of how these meetings/events/talks could be displayed or advertised, and how this may sit around the university.
An example of the logo in place.
The visuals for the brand are, for me, secondary, but in order to present something that feels tangible and real (and realistic) to the client, we wanted to demonstrate how flux may look. I wanted to work on a few digital posters just to act as examples as to how the space could suit a range of purposes and different types of events. Again, we feel very lucky coming from the art block where there’s lunch meetings, get togethers, yoga, and singing, we thought it would be useful to show how flux could facilitate this across the whole university and not just within individual schools – this is the old, insular way. We want a more inclusive and something that helps foster and develop inter-school relationships in a way that they’ve not been before.
These posters serve as another touchpoint for the flux brand. They are vibrant and engaging, and promote a range of different events. I thought it would be useful for the client to see just how successfully this could be done in the future.
An example of how these could be displayed on the large digital screens like the one in the Zen bar. This method of having continuous rotation would be better suited to digital platforms.
I quickly put this together as an example of how flux could sit as part of the existing Cardiff Met ‘template’. There is the rolling advertisement screen on the website, and this could simply be added along with the various other things that are promoted on the website. We envisaged there being a fluxHUB page that you would be directed to from within the Cardiff Met student portal. The space could be booked out for events, you can check availability of the space, and find out more about its purpose and what it means for the students of Cardiff Met.
Identifying Space Around Campus
We’ve spent a bit more time trying to work out what sort of thing would suit where. The large courtyard area in the middle of Llandaf campus seems ideal, as it’s currently assigned as the smoking area/overflow car park and is a 100% eyesore. It’s the main corridor through the campus itself, and it’s used as a walkway to get somewhere else. I can’t help but feel how good this space could be if it was turned into a seating area, or repurposed as a central hub that could just brighten the whole place up a bit.
In terms of what we’re doing next, I think we’ve agreed on creating an actual physical space – a new building (eek) – that could really do this whole thing justice. In our minds we see this going behind management where the strange unused outdoor monkey bars/gym thing is. We’ve now discovered that you’re only allowed on the monkey bars if you’ve had a full gym induction and are supervised by someone who works at the gym. (Good one).
I’m no good at Photoshop so we’ve been deliberating as to whose jobs are what now that we need to produce something a little more visual to back up our (what I believe to be) a really really strong and valuable idea. Zarna and I are going to work on more of the branding/visual identity of flux, and Aaron, Gavin and Rhys are going to do more of the Photoshop mockups and visualising what these spaces could be. For us, it’s more about communicating the importance of better social interaction across the different schools as they’re currently so insular that we really feel that people are missing out. I can’t help but think how valuable it would be to have better interaction across schools (i.e. Art and Health Sciences etc.). The visuals are very secondary to what we want the space to do for students.
