Ignite
After creating the identity for the inaugral Ignite Festival of Creativity in July 2020 Plymouth had been due to celebrate it’s second year until COVID-19 forced it to be shelved. With both the University’s and College of Arts' own Degree Shows also being cancelled COVID-19 was presenting a serious challenge to students, many of whom were unable to access studios and showcase their final year projects.
Adapting to the challenge of COVID.
Both the University and College needed to find a way to preserve the degree show tradition in an online format, and provide them with a platform upon which to shine - from here the Ignite Futures platform was born.
To answer this challenge as quickly as possible the University of Plymouth and Plymouth College of Art returned to Just Enough Brave to help them create a unique spin on the traditional arts degree show. Working together we moved the initial concept beyond recreating a graduate show online to developing a resource that was a valuable platform for creative buyers to connect, search and commission graduates for work.
Brave connected with the requirements of our brief and created a platform which was beautifully designed, intuitive to use and a real asset for our students when seeking employment. Working with them is always a pleasure, bringing energy and contemporary design solutions.
Building student
engagement
With a technically sophisticated back-end system, students can submit their details, create a profile and then upload their creative work and work experience. Once signed off by a course leader a student’s profile will go-live on the platform. We also supported both academic institutions by helping oversee and create a series of video tutorials and digital handbooks to help communicate and assist them in the imminent launch of the site.
Student engagement and take up was obviously a key requirement because without their participation the platform was next to pointless. With the preparatory work delivered before going live student sign ups were a resounding success. At pre-launch we already had 30% of the possible student profiles registered on the platform, 1 month after launch we had recruited another 40%. Finally 2 months after going live we had recruited the final 30% of the cohort. The result is a rich platform of emerging talent.
Award-winning results!
The Ignite website has had 13,000 unique visitors since its launch and an average of 22.62% more page views per session than other UK websites within the Industry related to Resumes, Portfolio and Jobs. Within the site there have been 350 Profile connections based on the ‘Hire Me’ button. Add to this there have also been 55 collaboration enquiries via contact forms.
As if to ratify the platforms success, In 2021 Ignite Futures was shortlisted for no less than 4 industry awards with one shortlisting being for the Europe-wide ‘Oscars of Higher Education’ The Times Higher Education awards (THE Awards).