Steve McCarthy /design

'Achieve More' was a university-wide project in which first year students were teamed up with students from different degrees (whom they might otherwise have not met), and given challenges to devise solutions for. The aim of the project was to encourage collaboration across disciplines, and introduce these new students to the broader concept of university-level academia.

As a part of the university's Careers Service, my task was to produce a short, animated explainer video that would explain to the students how they could reflect on the skills they would develop during this project - and indeed throughout their degree - so that they could reference these skills in future job applications and interviews.

The process

This project was a collaborative project across the university, and involved input from various departments, however the majority of the video production was left to me. The initial idea was presented by an external department, and I worked with careers advisers to create an effective script.

The overall 'Achieve More' brand, along with the university's brand had to be implemented into the project. The logo consisting of triangles worked as an effective device to create abstract, icon-based illustrations of the various concepts discussed in the video. After the style guide and storyboard was approved by the wider team, I progressed ahead with recording a voice-over to time the animation to, then completing the animation.

Techniques

The entire video was developed using Adobe Illustrator and After Effects. One key element in this design was following the geometric style of the brand with an isometric effect applied to various elements throughout the video. This was achieved by working in 2.5D; organising flat surfaces in 3D space, and then setting up a very distant camera with a strong zoom to create the illusion of an orthographic view.

Results

The video was presented to students during an introductory event, and feedback was positive. As the video was also introduced by a careers adviser from the Careers Service, it helped raise awareness of the department amongst new students who might have otherwise assumed that the service was only for students that were due to graduate.