University of Gloucestershire Graphic Design students win ‘Brief Cases’ Awards

University of Gloucestershire students have won Gold and Silver Awards for the ‘Brief Cases: Sustainable Futures’ project. The project asked Graphic Design students to tell stories through social and printed media, identifying and supporting one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of their work decisions and project outcomes.​​

Daisy Farmer, won the first Gold award for her project ‘Sprout’, and Gillian Belton won Silver for the her ‘Something Blue’ project. 

Brief Cases is a national competition, judged and awarded by industry professionals. It is an initiative from The Heaven Company (a Communications company specialising in Corporate Social Responsibility) which aims to bridge the gap between academic study and commercial reality. The scheme provides real-life learning opportunities for degree level students and scope for Universities to collaborate with industry. 

The undergraduates are challenged to work according to the constraints of business brief in fulfilment of a BA (Hons) degree programme. Through the practical projects students gain valuable entrepreneurial and employability skills, as well as industry awareness. 

Daisy Farmer, Gold winner of the Brief Cases competition, wrote about her reasons for choosing ‘Sprout’ as her project focus:
“My chosen UN development goals are, number 12 which will symbolise the excessive consumption of food and number 4 is symbolising the educating of children and people of this matter. 

“I want to show children that we need to stop wasting so much food as it isn’t very good for the planet, but we can’t just tell them to stop eating fruit and veg to reduce waste – we instead need to encourage them to eat it. A solution to the problem of children not eating their fruit and veg was to encourage the children to grow their own products at school as it’s researched that children are more likely to eat something they have grown or made themselves. 

“My idea was that I could create seed packets for children at Primary school. These packets can be sent to schools to be planted; the aim is that if the children grow their own produce, they might feel more inclined to eat it.”​