Cardiff Design Festival

Brief

In mid-2010 the University of Glamorgan Students’ Union approached Savage and Gray to produce their Annual Freshers Guide. The guide would be sent to each newly enrolled student before they arrived at the University as part of their welcome pack. A unique set of circumstances presented an interesting design problem. The Union was having its old building replaced with a brand new facility, which meant there where no images of the previous facilities or of the new building available.

Result

On completion, the client was delighted that the styling gave a feel of fun, freedom and anticipation as intended, and was thrilled with the fact that the brochure projected a message to the students that when they did arrive at the Union they would be met with something amazing. The client was also excited to be sending out promotional literature that was markedly different from anything that they, or their competitors had done previously, providing a sense of the great variety the new facilities would offer whilst giving the Union a unique visual language that expressed the recreational side of the University, and which couldn’t have contrasted more with its academic identity.

Solution

Our solution used the clients expectation of a new and big change happening as the central design theme. Each section would have its own illustration to express the BIG change and the bigger and better facilities that went with it. We created and shot 3D cardboard models in the studio for the word ‘BIG’, at a variety of angles, and composited these together with textured and cut-out backgrounds, along with found images to create new illustrations and express the theme. We decided to keep each composition as abstract and surreal as possible – which contrasted well with the client’s clear text. The range of themes included an outer-space image for the introduction entitled ‘One BIG Leap’ and the Presidents welcome page entitled ‘The BIG Cheese’ using type made from hand-cut cheese slices. We also used an A6 brochure size to juxtapose against the ‘BIG’ theme.