After the FdA, second year student, Carl Angelo intends to continue his education at the Swedish digital design school, Hyper Island. Hyper Island 'offers creative learning experiences in all things digital'. Education based on life long learning and real industry needs' and very much reflects the FdA ethos of industry collaboration and work-based learning.
Introduction video for hyper island 2012 by Carl Angelo from Carl Angelo on Vimeo.
We have just finished marking submissions for the Work Based Learning unit that takes place at the beginning of the second year on the FdAs in Design & Illustration and once more the work produced illustrates the range of opportunities that can be provided by proactively engaging with the professional context. Our students really are ‘learning with industry’. This is illustrated in the three submissions we have chosen to feature on this blog.
Futurefit is a report produced by the CBi that examines how Universities can build employability skills in their graduates. The full document can be downloaded here:
Here are some ideas that ‘Futurefit’ proposes to improve students employability:
> Building employability skills into the curriculum through work-related learning – for example, using case study examples linking the subject knowledge to its application in the outside world.
> Adapting the way the curriculum is taught and assessed – for instance, ensuring students have the opportunity to give presentations or work in a team, and rewarding the demonstration of employability skills
> Offering compulsory – usually accredited – modules designed to help students acquire employability skills
> Making paid work placements of up to a year a key part of the university experience, often with a network of contacts with employers at departmental or faculty level and/or centrally.
In spring 2010, Course Leader, Derek Yates, embarked on a CLTAD funded secondment in order to identify innovative best practice in terms of work based and work related learning within Higher Education.
This research involved:
> Going through Governmental research reports in reports such as ‘Future fit. Preparing graduates for the world of work. Produced by the CBI; The Future Face of Enterprise. Demos; The Cox Review. Sir George Cox.; the QAA Code of Practice for Work- Based & Placement Learning; Skillset. Guidelines for Employers offering Work Placement Schemes in the Creative Industries
> Tracking blogs, websites and publications produced by people like Creative Review, Design Week, the Design Council and Eye.
> Attending and talking at conferences like CCW Work Based Learning Conference and the ‘Design & the Creative Industries Conference: Working Together with Universities’ at Brighton University.
> Interviewing leading practitioners from across the creative industries such as the design team at Glue London (a digital agency); Steve Dunn, Creative Director at the Assembly (an advertising agency); Davide, Creative Director of Quayola (motion graphics/ interactive director); Matt Wade, partner Kin (an interaction & environment design agency); Russell Holmes, then Creative Director at Dave (the branding consultancy); Matt Rice, partner at Sennep (Web design agency); Roberto D’Andria, partner Bear (graphic design & branding agency) and Luise Vormitagg, partner at Container Plus (an Illustration Collective)
> Drawing together material gathered during previous collaborations with agencies such as: Moving Brands, Bibliotheque, the V&A, 300 Million, Kino and Onedotzero.
Over the last seven years FdA students have done placements at studios that include the Design Studio; Johnston Works; AIG (now Applied_espi); 300Million; Bear; Draught Associates; Coley Porter Bell; Creative Leap; Dazed & Confused; FiveFootSix; Kino; Moving Brands; Peepshow; Showmedia; Showstudio; Vogue; Saatchi & Saatchi; Dutch Uncle; Vivid Brand; TwobyTwo; Bibliothéque, No Brow Publishing and Thomas Matthews. They analyse their experience through a learning journal, some of which are pictured above.
At the end of stage one of the FdA students at Camberwell are required to do some detailed research into a particular aspect of current practice within the creative industries. They make direct contact with practitioners and reveal first hand insight into the key issues of contemporary practice and their findings are then distilled into a bound report. This process has a series of employability benefits. Firstly, students start to build a network of professional contacts and learn how to engage in conversation at a professional level. They also start to develop an understanding of current industry practice and learn how to present this information in an appropriate form.
