DAMEC approached the Shopfront in early 2014 seeking support for a brand makeover and to create consistency in design across all of the agency’s collateral, press and publications, aiming to promote the agency with a fresh face that incorporates the current logo.
DAMEC is an agency that provides an AOD counselling service with a culturally diverse staff who offer counselling in Arabic, Cantonese, English, Khmer, Mandarin, Sinhala and Vietnamese.
DAMEC's Rachel Rowe with her team of UTS Visual Communications students
after they presented their range of designs for the organisation
Shopfront was able to match DAMEC with a talented team of student designers – Supriya Bhonsle, Chi Pang Chan, Roslyn Coutinho, Annabel Ockenden, Tsz Man (Jenny) Wong and Thi Thanh Thuy Le – under the supervision of Kate Dilanchian.
As a team-building exercise the students developed a name and brand for their team – TANK.
TANK worked closely with DAMEC to refine its current logo, develop a colour scheme and pattern for templates, presentations, publications and other resources. The students also created iconography, took a series of photos to incorporate into collateral and developed a two-minute promotional video to reach groups who might not be able to read a print source.
This is always a big learning process for the design students. Annabel, one of the TANK team, said: ‘I learnt lot and liked the realities of working with a real client. We were lucky that DAMEC was always providing feedback ASAP and offering their help whenever we needed it. The project was loads of pressure, however, it meant TANK worked hard and we put extra effort in’.
Rachel Rowe, Senior Research Officer at DAMEC, commenting on the professionalism of the students said: ‘The students have been attentive – really listening. Even with some pushing from me the students have been diplomatic doing their best to incorporate changes. Their work is really great. I actually thought they would need some handholding but it wasn’t at all the case. They have been at Redfern and out to Liverpool for filming: everyone thinks they are amazing. The students have worked really hard to get an understanding of the sector and their feedback has been insightful’.
On the outcome Rachel said: ‘The students have been fantastic! Wonderful design – their work is great. DAMEC is happy and the staff are very excited about the project. When the students presented they laid all the designs out of the boardroom table so all the staff could see it – everyone was impressed. We can’t wait to apply our “new design”.’