OUGD502: Lifes A Pitch Presentation

When coming together, we realised our versatility was in difference. This is simply a platform to communicate our work, similar to a coalition to promote each other. With this in mind, the target audience needs to encompass the breath of everyones practice, meaning the broader- the better.  We intended to give art and design back to the people, freely distributing it and using it as an effective tool to get others involved too. Taking inspiration from The Happy News and Nest Magazine, we expand our initial public in many ways to grow as a collective.

Alice is a strong concept developer with ethical practice and politics at the heart of her practice. Dom enjoys editorial and photographic based work, experimenting with collage and typography. Hannah is a huge avocet of colour, creating wild pattern based designs based on lively colours. Anna has an all round interest in Graphic design and world issues she wants to portray through her work. Our strength as a collaborative team is our diversity in design and art production; and finally Callum is the brand focused designer, taking inspiration from clean Swiss design and functionality. 

Our ethos is to encourage individuality and combining skills and strengths as well as showcasing the breadth of Graphic Design. We're all about getting individuality out of people, showcasing all different types of graphic designs so theres something for everyone.

Our showcase will take the form of a newspaper/zine distributed freely around collectives and design enthusiasts (Munro House, Independent cafe's, Local businesses, even Leeds Train Station/London Underground). This will feature our own work as a self promotion, as well as grow to incorporate the Nest model of open call submissions. This gives creatives an independent platform where they can get published and grow in confidence as a practitioner. 

Our costs are quite limited yet we plan to look into Riso printing, as with contributions from all group members the individual amounts may not be too ridiculous. John Watters also gave us advice to contact companies and ask for funding in exchange for an endorsement  something we also plan to look into when researching local businesses.

The structure of the collective will be fairly sparse so everybody has the freedom to focus on their own practice. Callum created the AWOL branding, playing to his own strength and interest, Alice will be the director of all administration, including the Instagram and Twitter account. She took responsibility of creating a shared google drive folder where we can all freely distribute work and ideas, as well a group chat on .drive and Facebook as a more instant means of communication than email. Anna will be in charge of finances, making sure budgeting and negotiating with printers. Hannah will post regular funny things on both social media platforms, encouraging discussions about society and the creative industries in our areas using the hashtag #HeyAwol. Everybody will play to their strengths where required, with the editorial design being the job of Dom and myself who have the most interest with editorial- as a group we will generate ideas and choose production skills accordingly. 

We will promote the showcase by our Instagram account @AwolCollective, as well as through sparse posters around distribution points. The whole nature of newspapers is that you often find them on the train or get handed them, and open them out of boredom/curiosity. The ambiguity in the meeting needs to be met with something to keep the viewer engaged- our work!...

10 min presentation

When presenting the 10 minuet pitch the group remained calm and remembered the presentation skills we had previously rehearsed. The feedback was positive and the idea of distributing art back to the people is an effective touch for distribution. We will need to grow the identity of the collective around Leeds primarily and focus on curating enough interest to lead to the expansion of the publication so trust needs to be made.