Thinking back to my first few weeks of university life I discovered that there were a certain set of problems that come with moving to both a new university and a new city. These problems can be divided into two categories: working and living. Within a new city there are obviously issues with navigation and finding your way around, and within the university there are anxieties about getting involved and being comfortable working there. From this starting point I made a variety of sketches from some initial ideas:
Looking at the problems that are specific to starting a new course, one of the most challenging aspects for me came when a new brief was set. Particularly in the first few projects there was a looming pressure to create the same kind of work that everyone else was creating - to use the same colours or the same typefaces, or to follow the 'minimal' and 'Swiss' design trends. Coming from a more fine art background I wasn't as familiar in designing in this way and found myself unwillingly drawn to creating work digitally rather than by hand. As a way of discouraging this herd-like behaviour in new students, my first idea was to create a short zine entitled Use Your Hands that actively encouraged stepping away from the computer and getting physical with the projects. Even if the end result would ultimately be digital, it would still encourage students to use their hands to sketch and draw and measure out as a way of experimentation.
Another problem that is common for new students is the reluctance to start making work for fear that it won't be right - the 'blank first page' problem. To solve this, another idea was to supply new students with pre-worn notebooks that had slightly bent corners and had the first page crossed out. This would hopefully encourage students to get past this fear of creating and just create.
Moving on to look at the challenges of a new city, navigation is always a common problem that new students face. Finding my way around Leeds was challenging for me when I first moved here, and in particular, finding my way to and from the university. From my accommodation block there were about a dozen different possible routes, all of which overlapped and intertwined in a seemingly infinite number of possibilities. As a new student I was given no guidance as to which were the best routes, but ultimately as I've discovered, each one takes exactly the same amount of time anyway. As a response to this I could create a tongue-in-cheek zine full of different written directions that only contain the words 'left' and 'right', with no indication as to the starting point or the destination.
Another aspect of university life that is only discovered once you move is that some days are just really normal. Sometimes nothing exciting will happen, even if you want it to, and it's quite easy to find yourself working a nine to five day and having the sudden realisation that that's basically what life is sometimes. It wasn't an alien concept to me before I moved but it only really became a reality during my first term, and I found it to be quite unsettling at times. To reassure other possible new students that the normalcy of life is actually very real but nothing to be alarmed of, I could produce a short written zine responding to this concept.
Feedback from a critique highlighted that the Use Your Hands concept would be the most engaging, and would also be the most encouraging for new students coming from a range of creative backgrounds. It was suggested however that the idea might work more effectively as a series of handmade posters, so that it could be pasted on a bedroom wall or in a studio, and therefore have a longer lasting effect. From the feedback I will continue with the idea of Use Your Hands, and investigate ways in which a poster series could be created.