Student's work hits the streets
Combining her love of hip-hop, photography and visual communication, fourth-year student Jackie Te-Aroha Wharerau went above and beyond the brief for her Design Project as part of her Bachelor of Design (Visual Communication) degree.
As a major element of their coursework, Design Project students were asked to develop a campaign relating to a social or environmental issue.
Jackie decided to create a live campaign for Street University, which generates opportunities for young people to realise their abilities and participate in and instigate change within their community. Jackie’s campaign centred on the Mount Druitt branch, taking into consideration that to receive funding, the organisation needs to attract students to the free creative courses run there, including photography, dance, music and film classes.
“The aim is for students to understand the proactive role design can play in changing behaviours, which therefore implicitly changes both society and the environment,” says Alison Barnes, a lecturer in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts (opens in a new window).
Jackie, who plans to set up a creative studio in the future, worked on a proposal and sent it to the General Manager and a Youth Worker at Street University. Once the proposal was approved, Jackie conducted focus groups with some of the current Street University participants. “From this I gained valuable insights into their perceptions of other campaigns targeted towards them, such as speeding, drink driving, smoking and mental health,” explains Jackie.
Jackie focused her message on young people being able to make their own realities, hence the campaign title “Creating Realities”, and designed posters and filmed videos to encourage participation. But her work does not end there.
“The plan is to try to get the online media to work with the workshops,” she says. “The intent is to increase the amount of digital media output by the youth. We will encourage young, local emcees to write and record a 16-bar verse around the ‘Creating Realities’ theme and upload it to YouTube. A few will be selected to record the track at Street University, which will be distributed for free download on Soundcloud. A music video will also be created for YouTube.”
As part of the promotions, Jackie opened social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter as well as a YouTube channel and Soundcloud account.
The final part of Jackie’s campaign is to create a digital media pack and distribute it to local high schools, encouraging them to display the posters on school grounds.
The work Jackie has put into the campaign has also opened up doors for her professionally. Street University was so impressed with Jackie’s work that she was asked to become a workshop facilitator. Jackie teaches participants how to use digital SLRs in Manual mode. “I teach both photography and video, and we use Photoshop and Final Cut pro to create images and movies that are made publicly available through Facebook and YouTube.”
