A creative collaboration between Otago Polytechnic and the Dunedin City Council has helped students develop their artistic and marketing skills.

The Creative Partnerships teamat the DCC have been looking at ways to rebrand the Community Gallery in Princes Street.

As part of this, the creative team recently engaged with Otago Polytechnic Bachelor of Communication Design students to task them with developing brand design concepts for the Community Gallery.

The degree requires students to work with external organisations as part of their second year course. After initial discussions with Creative Partnerships, the students developed four brand design concepts, and then chose one of these to carry forward as a group, which involved the development of a marketing plan for the Community Gallery.

The Creative Partnerships team was impressed by the concept designs produced in the project. Although it is not required, the DCC creative team hopes to carry the collaboration forward and use the basic concept for branding the Community Gallery.

The benefits of the relationship between the DCC and Otago Polytechnic flowed both ways. It gave the students an opportunity to think strategically about the role of the Community Gallery in the city’s creative ecosystem, work to a real-life brief for a real-life client, and introduce them to ways in which local government can be involved in creative activity in the city.