NEWS IN DETAIL...
Presenting St Austell Bay
Last Friday was not an ordinary day for a class of Business students from Cornwall College St Austell. Instead of throwing on a pair of jeans and trainers for the day they made sure their shirts and trousers were ironed ready to present to their special guests.
Their mission if they chose to accept it was to design a new website to help promote St Austell Bay to local and visiting businesses and individuals. The teams were given a logo to work from and ideas about the look and feel of the site.
The seven students currently in their second year of studying Business BTEC Diploma, met with Helen Nicholson, Community Network Manager for Cornwall Council and Kristian Andrews, Designer from St Austell Brewery to discuss their innovative ideas in a very professional boardroom setting.
Helen commented: “We approached the students earlier this month with the brief to design a fast-turnaround, low budget microsite with content management and social media integration as a platform for future social media campaigns. The students grasped the potential of St Austell Bay as a concept and produced sites which would signpost to the attractions in the area. Each design had good points, and the final design will use something from each one.”
Helen and her team have not approached any professional firms to work on this project yet as they need to secure funding. However this exercise and the amount of ideas that the students have come up with will be presented to members of the St Austell Bay forum in the near future.
Jackie Hanton, group lecturer said: “The students all took to the project easily and came up with a number of design concepts. They have all learnt how important it is to work with a business in identifying a target market and trying to draft a design around the customer requirements and that of the website target audience. They have improved their professional communication and presentation skills, I am very proud of the work they have achieved!”
The students looked confident in their presentations and professional in their approach to the industry experts and project managers. Beth Wilson, who studies on the course explained: “It will be exciting to hear more about the design of the St Austell Bay website and whether they have used any of our designs and concepts. It was good that we could provide our insight into the content and to discuss what’s important to the younger target market.”
