Graphic design students create branding for Middlesbrough food growing businesses
First year graphic design students at The Northern School of Art‘s Middlesbrough further education campus have been working on a collaborative project to design branding for local food growing businesses.
The UAL Extended Diploma in Graphic Design students joined forces with Middlesbrough social enterprise Barefoot Kitchen CIC to create logos and identities for businesses that are part of the national Farmstart initiative which supports amateur food growers to create new farming enterprises.
Barefoot Kitchen CIC has been delivering ‘plot to plate projects for people, places and the planet’ since 2019 with the aim of helping Middlesbrough become a food resilient town. As part of the Farmstart scheme, a national initiative delivered by the National Farmstart Network of the Landworkers’ Alliance in collaboration with the Urban Agricultural Consortium, it is currently training fourteen Farmstarters in basic horticulture and business skills, who are growing mainly on a shared site in Acklam with some other plots across the town.
Catherine Howell, Barefoot Kitchen CIC’s Director and Project Manager, said that the project with The Northern School of Art students was the perfect opportunity for the Farmstarters to explore the branding around their potential businesses.
“Six people felt they were at the point of considering a logo and we asked them to prepare a brief – this was new to them too. We then presented these to the group on a visit to the School and also gave the students a little background about the Farmstarters – their personalities, the things that were important to them and their hopes for their future enterprise. Then we left the students to work on ideas for a week or two.
“We then visited The Northern School of Art again, this time with some of the Farmstart participants, and the students presented their ideas to us. They were amazing!”
Graphic Design student Mac Brown (@celestial_beetle_designs on Instagram), pictured left, a former Ian Ramsey CoE Academy student from Stockton-on-Tees, developed branding and logo concepts for two of the businesses – Crawford’s and Pom Pommes, examples pictured below – and said that the project had given him a good insight into a career working as a graphic designer.
“I chose to study graphic design because it offers a mix of art and a more commercial side to design. The week-long deadline we were working within was a challenge. I learnt that it is important to track and stay on top of the timeframe as there was a lot that needed to be completed.”
Student Rose Richardson (@plant_demon on Instagram), pictured above right, a former student of The Grangefield Academy who is from Stockton-0n-Tees, has ambitions to progress onto internships after her studies so the live brief provided a good insight into working in a professional environment.
Commenting on the designs she created for Pom Pommes and Cheeky Monkey Chillies she added: “My biggest challenge was sourcing fonts that had suitable licences for the client. I also found the time frame difficult to fit research into, although I could easily make an outcome in one week.”
Barefoot Kitchen CIC’s Catherine Howell added: “The experience of working with The Northern School of Art has been great. It’s added real value to the Farmstart project and enabled our trainees to try something not just completely new, but also gain something that will have purpose and use to them in the future.
“We were thoroughly and unanimously impressed by not just the students’ creativity and hard work, but by the way they had responded so well to the briefs and with the professionalism that they’d demonstrated in sharing their ideas, particularly at such an early point in their careers.”
To find out more about Barefoot Kitchen CIC click HERE
Further information about The Northern School of Art’s UAL Extended Diploma in Graphic Design is available HERE
