Two final year Graphic Design BA (Hons) students from ECA have been named top 10 finalists at the INTL live brief competition, for their humorous campaign based on the ill-informed comments they receive in response to their dietary restrictions.
Katie Marsden and Chiara Watt attended the conference in Glasgow together in December. The international design festival was created by ECA alumni Beth Wilson and James Gilchrist of Warriors Studio, and as well as workshops, includes a live brief competition for students. This year’s brief, set by website The Brand Identity, was to “Identify a problem in your life and reframe it using humour.”
Katie and Chiara realised that living with dietary restrictions was shared – and fertile – ground for their campaign. Katie said: “Seeing as we worked in a pair, we tried to think of problems that affect us both, and ultimately settled on allergies/dietary restrictions, and taking a satirical approach to the ignorant comments that we face daily.
“I found the brief to be quite challenging, as it can be scary to try and be funny under pressure, but working together meant it felt easier to bounce ideas around and feel less embarrassed. Our tutor from ECA, Donald Soutar, encouraged us to work in pairs rather than individually as this would help us to be able to produce more work, which definitely turned out to be the case. We both work together a lot in the studio, so it felt great to go through this process together.”
The pair received mentoring from Agency of None staff Ryan McLeod and Lyall Bruce to help develop their ideas, and decided to create a bingo game out of some of the thoughtless comments they’d received, as well as enlarging them and printing them on household objects – especially onto items they associated with older family members who had been most likely to make unhelpful remarks.
As well as creating the visuals, they had to give a 2-3 minute presentation on their campaign, using mock-ups and photographs of the game. As finalists, they win a placement with Agency of None, to be taken this summer.
Katie said: “It was such a great feeling being chosen for the final 10, as that meant we knew we had been selected for a work placement, which was our goal and the main reason we attended! So, presenting to the judges in the final 10 and aiming for a podium position was a nice bonus, but when we ultimately didn’t get it, we were far from disappointed. The other solutions from the top 10 were all brilliant and hilarious, and I was grateful that there was an overall very supportive atmosphere.
“It felt really lovely to win the work placement, seeing as being so close to graduation there is usually a lot of uncertainty about the future. As well as gaining this experience, the event overall was a great place to network with other students/soon-to-be-graduates as well as professional designers from other universities and colleges and finding new role models from the industry. It was a great confidence boost!”