ARU students studying BA (Hons) Illustration were offered the opportunity to create educational resources for us as part of their live brief initiative.
ARU recently introduced a new employability project which included Live Briefs allowing students exposure to authentic learning experiences and professional practice by working closely with a potential employer on a live brief. We partnered with first year illustration students in 2021 and worked on 4 live brief projects with them.
By applying their knowledge to a real illustration project for an organisation like ours and hearing feedback on their work directly from us, enables students to develop employability skills such as team working, negotiation, and presenting their ideas which will improve their future career prospects. It also provides practical experience that can enhance their CV. The professional feedback they receive from us will differ a little from academic feedback provided by tutors on their assignments as it focusses on how their output meets our challenge and how it might be utilised in the Garden.
We were very impressed with the work the students produced, some of which was so good we asked the student to help us deliver another project as a paid freelance illustrator. It was fascinating to see the various interpretations of the live briefs by the different students and their individual styles bringing the work to life. The experience of working with so many students was exciting as the outputs were so varied and out of the box that we were able to explore so many different ways of engaging with the same topic.
We will continue to work with a new group of ARU students in 2022. Look out for some of their work appearing in the Garden over the next year.
