UNIVERSITY NEWS LAST UPDATED : 14 APRIL 2023
Top retailer Size? recently gave fashion and textile students at Birmingham City University (BCU) the opportunity to design brand campaigns for clothing giant New Balance as part of their ‘Made in UK’ trainer range.
BCU students collaborated with Size? through their ‘Syllabus’ scheme which enables the retailer to support and promote upcoming talent, providing young people with insights and valuable experience into working with major labels.
To help shape their campaigns, students worked alongside industry professionals in media, visual communication and photography, as well as representatives from Size? and New Balance.
Size? outlined three specific design briefs, requiring students to consider New Balance’s core values and identity in their campaigns with a key emphasis on storytelling, critical thinking, vision and innovative direction.
The budding Brummie fashionistas combined the necessary marketing and promotion, fashion and product styling, retail installation, as well as market analysis, into their finished campaigns - before delivering a ‘Dragons' Den’ style presentation in person to professionals from both Size? and New Balance.
Emily Ware and Suha Abdullah are both second-year BA Fashion Branding and Communication students at BCU who took part in the ‘Size? Syllabus’ project.
Ware said: "Working on the Size? X New Balance campaign as part of the Fashion Branding course here at BCU has helped me gain lots of new skills, in particular graphic design. Connecting with professionals within the industry has been extremely valuable as well."
"Being a Fashion student and collaborating with such well-known brands shows not only the talent of the students here at BCU, but how immersive the Fashion Branding course is, helping you develop contacts in industry while still studying is certainly going to help me in my future career."
Abdullah said: "Working on the project has helped develop my communication, project management, organisation, creative thinking, and adaptability skills. It has been so valuable connecting with professionals in the fashion industry, they have provided us with critical feedback and have helped act as the gateway for networking."
"The biggest challenge of the project was finding a concept that everyone will like, whilst balancing topics that could be deemed controversial - but something that both brands need to be challenged on in order to be more diverse and inclusive."
Not only will the campaigns form part of students’ final portfolios used to determine their degree classifications, but also open opportunities for placements and work experience as major brands look to build, amplify and launch the next generation of industry visionaries.