A trio of graphic design and photography students wowed a national charity and could be set to have their designs published on major transport networks.
Katie Jones, Riannon Grimsley and Olivia Krawczyk created six posters to educate, inform and sparked conversation around sex and people with disabilities.
The students from Royal Leamington Spa College are all studying HND Graphic Design and Photography.
Tutors at the college organised for Katie, Riannon and Olivia to present their designs to charity Enhance The UK – which aims to change the way people view disability.
Its global campaign ‘Undressing Disability’ aims to raise standard in sexual health and sexual awareness for people with disabilities.
After presenting to Jennie Williams, the charity’s CEO, the charity expressed an interest in working with the students moving forward – with the potential for their posters to be printed and shown in underground stations and on bus stops, as part of a campaign using London’s transport network.
The students also created a booklet to present to the charity.
Katie Jones, from Leamington, designed posters around breaking taboos and projecting the statement that people with disability want to have sex, they can have it and they will.
Riannon, from Wellesbourne, produced designs which educated people on having a relationship with someone with a disability.
While Olivia, from Daventry, saw her work focus on dating, online dating and giving people with disabilities more confidence in those environments.
Dr Geraldine Marshall, Graphic Design Lecturer at Royal Leamington Spa College, said: “It was a live brief and a fantastic opportunity for our students to talk directly for a client.
“It is great real-world experience and gave their work a platform outside of college.
“The presentations were excellent. Each student presented their work, their process and the concept behind it. The feedback was really strong and their work might form part of a major transport poster campaign.
“An overarching theme of the work, when speaking to all three students, was using design to break stigma. The students had to consider things like accessibility and inclusion – incorporating aspects such as braile.
“We hope that this success will spark a positive working relationship moving forward for the three students with a brilliant national charity.”
Jennie Williams - founder and CEO of Enhance the UK Charity, said: “Geraldine asked me if I would watch presentations created by her students on the topic of sex and disability. The brief was to look at our Undressing disability campaign and showcase it.
“I agreed to do this because Geraldine and I have a good working relationship, I didn’t really have any expectations of what I was going to see.
“The students were so creative and myself and my team were so impressed with their work. We are currently trying to run a transport poster campaign using their ideas.
“If we are successful in getting the funding for this campaign, we will most certainly use students to work with us on this as paid work.”
To find out more about graphic design and photography courses at Royal Leamington Spa College (part of WCG) visit www.wcg.ac.uk/study.