Leeds Art Uni x Studio Griggs Live Brief
April | July 2024
I was delighted to be asked back to the Fashion Marketing (BA Hons) course at Leeds Arts Uni to set an optional Live Brief for the second year students this Spring / Summer. My brief was for students to create a set of brand guidelines for Studio Griggs - including colour palette, tone of voice, logo suite, digital guidelines and everything in between. The students that chose the brief did an amazing job of pulling this together, and one student, Freya had the particularly brilliant idea of adding a news section to my website, which I loved!
Freya has just finished two weeks of paid work experience to implement this and she wrote a few words on why she chose Studio Griggs as her live brief....
"As soon as I was talked through the options for industry partners that we could create a live brief for, I knew I wanted to choose Studio Griggs.
This was initially down to the fact I had seen on the website that Studio Griggs has worked with Aardman (and I adore Wallace and Gromit) and Steph has so much experience and has worked with some amazing brands like Roald Dahl. But upon further research I became fascinated with the branding and licensing industry.
As a Fashion Marketing student, it feels like there is an expectation that everything you do has to be fashion based. Whether that is through fashion photography, styling, merchandising etc. These are all things I enjoy but I could not see myself pursuing after I finish university. I hadn’t considered branding and licensing as a career until I had worked on this live brief.
Creating the brand guidelines document was my favourite aspect of my course module. It helped me to understand what makes up a brand and how important it is for key elements like colour palettes, voice and tone and usage guidelines to be right as they are at the core of a brand.
For the first time since starting my course I had found something I was passionate about and I enjoyed creating each page and coming up with potential ideas for Studio Griggs.
It was a great opportunity to meet Steph in person to pitch my work back to her and get her opinion and feedback.
I couldn’t wait to be able to ask her about her career and what it’s like to work with brands (especially Aardman!). After a successful pitch I was delighted that Steph offered me the chance to work with Studio Griggs for two weeks in the Summer to help build on my idea of adding a news aspect to the website.
It has been a lovely experience and I am very grateful to Steph for taking the time to work with me."
Visiting Lecturer
Feb 2023 | Feb 2024
I was invited to be a guest speaker on the BA (Hons) Fashion Branding with Communication course (for all levels) at Leeds Art University. I presented What is a Brand Extension? followed by a Q&A, crit session and feedback for first year (Level 4) students as they initiated a brief to create their own Roald Dahl Brand Extension concept with a Fashion Brand of their choice.
This year, I have returned to set a live brief for the students, which they will pitch back to me in late Spring.
Brand Designs Panelist
October 2022
I was delighted to be invited to join a panel at the Brand Licensing Europe conference in London's ExCel centre, to discuss all things Brand Extension. Billy Langsworthy chaired the session with myself and two creative leaders from the licensing industry, exploring the creative strategies and design thinking that goes into crafting authentic, successful brand extensions.