Riding on the success of our first work experience program last year, we decided to invite a new batch of high school students to participate in our 2017 Work Experience Program.
Over the last few months, we’ve welcomed five high school students who have worked on a design project that culminated in an exhibition of their work.
Taking inspiration from our previous program, we had students working on a design project given by a fictitious client (Coco, the eccentric social innovator). Under the guidance of our highly experienced design team, each student was given a week to research, plan and create design solutions to present to the client. Each student worked on the same brief and by the end of the year, we were very impressed by the five unique design interpretations. Our participants were from years 10 and 11 at Christies Beach High School, Henley High School, Wilderness, Unley High School and Emmaus Christian College.
This year, we decided to bring attention to textile waste, fast fashion and its negative impact on our society and the environment. The brief for the project was called “In Stitches”, a new community centre in Richmond encouraging people to repair their clothing, rather than buying new. The centre’s aim: to build a strong, vibrant community, share skills and take action against our fast fashion culture.
On the first day of the project the students were given the brief and did desktop research to understand the client’s goals and ideas. To learn more about the issues surrounding the garment industry, students watched Netflix documentary, The ‘True Cost’. Day two saw the students developing a mood board and tagline to help both the designer and client align their thinking around the logo direction, colours and fonts. A logo was created on the third day by drawing inspiration from the design discussions from day two. The fourth and final day was dedicated to producing collateral that supported their brand application.
An exhibition was set up at the end of the program for each student to showcase their best work. The students, along with their parents and teachers were invited to our studio to celebrate the results of their hard work.
The program was an overall success and Freerange had another fun year putting together the project. Big thanks to our whole team, especially Claire and India for being excellent design mentors, Alicia for playing the role of Coco and Rey for organising the exhibition!
If you know a student who might be interested in joining the program next year, please email us.
Topics: Events