SJU Creative Collective

Fellow: Gabriella Guzzardo

Team: Grace D’Amico, Christopher Kline, Alessia Martire, Natalia Pereira, Michael Perino and Casey Wood

Community Partner

At Saint Joseph’s, student content creation is the backbone of extracurriculars, organizations and athletics, which is why it's vital that students are provided with the resources and means to make and design on their own and in groups. Our community partner is the campus community who have backgrounds in Communications, Media, Graphic Design, Arts and Marketing. Our goal is to collaborate with and support these individuals in networking and in crafting a professional portfolio. This will benefit and ultimately elevate the Communications, Arts and Marketing departments by creating a professional structure for creation opportunities. 

Challenge

The SJU Creative Collective is based in Philadelphia, PA at Saint Joseph’s University. The Communication and Digital Media department recognizes that as the department at SJU continues to grow and receive an influx of students interested in graphic design and digital media, it is important to develop a new space for these students to express their creativity and gain professional design experience. In addition to artistic students passionate about design, other stakeholders include those on campus in various organizations and in the general surrounding community who might require creative media for marketing purposes. Therefore, in establishing the Creative Collective, we kept in mind the central question of, “How can we effectively provide meaningful opportunities to creative students interested in media production and building their portfolio, while also providing creative content for clients such as clubs and associations on campus?” By staying within this mindset, we were able to successfully meet the needs of our stakeholders through the Creative Collective’s launch.

Strategic Thinking

In order to come up with a plan of how to approach the Community Partner Project in terms of the establishment of the Creative Collective, our group gathered data from surveying 63 Communications & Digital Media Studies students at Saint Joseph’s University. This data served the purpose of highlighting first year aspirations for their future in the COM department at SJU, and opportunities seniors were unable to have at their time at SJU; the need for student professional exposure, and addressing the want of the collective being made.We want to provide constructive and beneficial opportunities for everyone who is interested, and hearing directly from the students themselves was the best way to accomplish this. After receiving this data through focus groups consisting of all graduating years and surveys asking students what they wanted or wish they were offered at SJU, we took a closer look into their wants and needs. We wanted to make decisions based on what would most benefit the community here at Saint Joseph’s. Each week we brainstormed and decided on all creative and logistical aspects of the collective using all of the feedback that we got from the students. Another resource we used were the COM department leaders and professors. Our group has been working closely with the department to get feedback on how we should advance the Creative Collective. After meeting periodically, we were able to get our ideas approved and developed. Collaboration with the COM department has proven to be crucial to the establishment of the Creative Collective at SJU. As a group, we have been extremely efficient and collaborative with one another; agreeing on the Creative Collective’s name, goals, roles, color scheme, font, logo, and more. We are still in the process of building the Creative Collective from the ground up, but through weekly meetings, department meetings, and collaboration on class assignments, we are definitely on a path to success.

Result

Based on the information we had collected within student focus groups, it was clear that the upperclassmen did not receive the professional experience they wanted while in the Communications and Media Studies and Art department. When asked what type of work they wished they had the opportunity to do at SJU, a majority of students wished they learned how to utilize more Adobe applications, as well as being offered more organizations, clubs, and classes that suited their interests and goals more. Going forward, our collective plans to provide this experience for the underclassmen who also want professional experience within the department. We surveyed 24 underclassmen and asked a series of questions regarding what they are interested in studying and how they want to pursue it at SJU. Most students wanted internship opportunities and professional space to pursue their interest in content creation through photography, videography, and graphic design. Our goal is to market and brand the SJU Creative Collective to increase involvement and establish the organization on campus, so we created a brand guide to display our brand. The brand guide includes header and body typefaces, a color palette, and logo variations. After creating the branding and mission statement, we made an Instagram account that will serve as the main communication outlet for the collective going forward. Once we establish ourselves on social media, where most of our audience is located online, we will connect with other on-campus organizations to create a lasting partnership that will benefit both the collective and the organization. The main outcome that we hope to achieve is to have students build a portfolio through the collective and earn a professional internship/work opportunity, which is their main goal as well. The SJU Creative Collective will continue this partnership while generating more collective members and community partners.

  • Promo Poster

  • Branding Kit - Colors

  • Branding Kit - Typeface

  • Branding Kit - Aesthetics

  • Mission Statement

  • Instagram Content

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