Everyday Heroes
Graphic & Media Design students Stephanie Tan and Maxwel Fabiano Da Silva were involved in designing a major exhibition during their Diploma in Professional Studies (DPS) year.
The ‘Everyday Heroes’ exhibition came from a professional relationship that LCC has built with the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) team at BNP Paribas. The French bank approached the ‘Conscientious Communicators’ hub at LCC, seeking out creative design students with an interest in sustainable communications and civic responsibility. This led to students from the areas of design, branded spaces, illustration, animation and photography working collaboratively on the exhibition at the bank’s headquarters in London.
BNP Paribas’s CSR approach focuses on promoting financial performance and stability, whilst combating climate change and building a sustainable future. To further demonstrate their commitment, the bank signed the pledge at the Paris Climate Conference (COP21) to keep the planet on a path to limit global temperature rise to less than 2°C. As communicators at LCC, we are very concerned by the negative and limited way that climate change is often portrayed; polar bears on shrinking islands and raging forest fires.
When the designers saw Fotodocument photographer Luca Sage’s positive images on the subject of directing finance to a sustainable economy that respects key environmental and social criteria, they knew that they wanted to entitle the exhibition ‘Everyday Heroes’ to celebrate and encourage these individual achievements. The rest of the design duly fell into place; using old scaffolding boards and poles, light honeycombe duralyte substrates, super-hero graphics to celebrate individuals and mirrors to encourage participation.
“We had not worked in a cross-disciplinary way at LCC before with other creatives who cared about sustainability. Nor such a great client. We learned how every specification needed to be carefully considered. Overall, the collaboration journey was one of the most vital experiences we have had. Not only has this opportunity allowed us to build our knowledge and portfolios, it has hugely expanded our confidence as (sustainable) designers and communicators.”
Stephanie Tan and Maxwel Fabiano Da Silva
Students worked together across LCC courses to co-design the exhibition: Max and Stephanie on typography and graphics, Olivia on the space and superhero animations, Anna on comic book illustrations. The students learned so much working with clients Richard and Anjuli, with Fotodocument and Standard8 the exhibition fabricators.
LCC Courses and Collaborators: BA (Hons) Graphic and Media Design, BA Illustration & Visual Media, BA (Hons) Branded Spaces and DPS.
Links: https://group.bnpparibas/en/hottopics/global-goals/bnp-paribas-sdgs
