An Edinburgh student has landed a placement at Scotland’s top design agency after winning a challenge to produce a branding and marketing strategy for a range of fruit drinks.
Sophie D’Agostino,21, from Morningside, devised a mock campaign to launch Kate’s, a new range of healthy fruit drinks for children destined for supermarket shelves.
Her successful response to a challenge set by Glasgow-based Good Creative, involved creating a series of cartoon superhero characters to match the four flavours included in the range.
Her prize is a four month long work experience placement with Good, which is ranked by the Design Business Association (DBA) as the most effective design agency in Scotland and the third most effective in the UK
The agency’s award winning team had already devised a brand identity for Kate’s, a company founded by Katherine Walker, a natural therapist from Glasgow, who was frustrated at being unable to find suitable, affordable lunchbox drinks for her young son.
While water and diluted fresh fruit juice were the healthiest choices available, she was concerned that many included artificial additives and high levels of sugar.
Walker set out to fill the gap in the market by devising a range of natural, healthy fruit juices with added herbal ingredients. She is now in negotiations with two major supermarket chains and hopes to launch her range on the market within the next year.
Good used the campaign as the basis for a brief given to third year students at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee.
Twenty one Students were asked to create a name and brand identity for the range, taking into account its target market, the health benefits of the product, Walker’s status as a concerned mother and her background in herbal medicine.
They were also asked to consider what the brand values should be, how the product would be positioned within the existing drinks market and how it would distinguish itself from competitors.
Sophie, a third year graphic design student, said: “We had pretty much free reign with the brand as long as we conveyed the message of a caring, small cottage industry with Kate, a trained natural therapist at its core and showed the drinks unique qualities, such as added vitamins and prebiotics.
“Kate is central to the brand, so I wanted to keep the focus on her. I chose superheroes as I felt children relate really well to them and that it was a nice twist that Kate was acting as the hero of the lunch box world, fighting the evil additives and protecting our children.
“I also created four illustrated characters to help engage children with the brand and wrote the copy for the cartons in a style which both children and adults would find interesting and amusing.”
The challenge was set by Keith Forbes, co-founder of Good Creative, who is a guest lecturer at Duncan of Jordanstone. He now plans to make it an annual event.
“There are limited opportunities for potential recruits into our industry to gain first-hand experience of the world of work,” said Forbes, who is the only Scottish board member of the DBA.
“This was a valuable exercise as it gave us, as potential employers, the opportunity to work closely with the college to produce leavers whose skills are matched to our needs.
“We were impressed by all of the work but Sophie’s submission showed an admirable a level of creativity and maturity that stood out.”
Gordon Robertson, Lecturer in Graphic Design at Duncan of Jordanstone, said it was a rewarding experience for all the students.
“The project initiated by Keith Forbes proved to be extremely valuable in augmenting our continuing practice of close liaison with the industry. The student group benefitted immensely from constructive criticism and pointers.”
The former pupil of St Thomas Aquin’s High School hopes the success will help her to land a job in the industry when she graduates next year.
“I really enjoyed working with Good Creative and I’m thrilled to have won a placement with them in the summer.
“Although I worked hard, putting the best of my abilities into the project and was looking forward to presenting my work to Keith, I was completely blown away with the positive feedback I was given and absolutely delighted to be offered a placement with the agency.”
