wmjgraphics

"I understand how this is happening. It’s a quick sleek method that sells to the 18 – 20 year olds target market and for production dollars to student dollars, maybe tryed method that worked in the past. At the end of the day it is a business transaction! This global focus is contributing to this mass look-a-like approach at the expensive of valuing the uniqueness of place, community and culture and yet it is only the billboard or shop window. I believe that the ‘Y gens’ are smarter about shopping than what this method demonstrates.

I had a refreshing chat with my daughter who is in the midst of choosing a university for next year. She is looking at nursing but here are her views on choosing a university.
“What is important to you in searching for ‘the’ University?”
Her response
“I listen to people who I know and trust who are at those universities. These could be a girl I work with, friends and family. I go and check out the location and attend the open days and talk to the faculty and students. What is important to me is the community. Will I be looked after? Will I be able to succeed here? Will I be safe to share my thoughts? I also visit the websites and look at brochures to confirm what I have already heard.”

Maybe this isn’t anything new. She wants to believe that what she is investing in is true and will help her achive. The element of truth between the design and what is perceived by people already experiencing the university.

Two points, 1) The brand needs to be consistent and 2) does the community successfully fulfilled itself in place, experience and promise to live up to it's visual communication or visa versa.

I believe university marketing needs to revert back to its own localalities in order to rediscover their uniqueness. Success, therefore is to build its place in the immediate community, build partnerships with local practitioners to help strengthen pathways into industry and endeavour to create life around the university.

So I agree with Alain Bieber when he mentioned involving ‘faculty, students and professors’ but I would also add practitioners in industry to help give the continued story. Once this ‘true’ identity is established then that can feed the creative expression and evolution of identity that can be betrayed throughout the total brand experience with particular attention to remaining consistent to this.

Therefore, in critiquing the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, they need to rediscover who they are and stop trying to perform on the global stage. Truth is the future for the Y generation!
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