Students go global with APEC logo design
A group of AUT design students are thrilled their work has gone global, after they created the APEC Voices of the Future 2021 logo.
The five friends, who are graduating this year with a Bachelor of Design in Communication Design, were asked to create a digital brand for the AUT-hosted event, which is taking place in November.
The APEC Voices of the Future event is part of APEC Leader’s Week and brings together more than 80 young people from 21 APEC economies. Each year, the host country is given the opportunity to design the event’s logo.
The students had previously worked on a branding assignment together as part of their degree but the APEC Voices of the Future freelance commission was their first experience working in the “world outside AUT. We’ve made something that has a real impact which is awesome. It definitely feels good to have our work out there in the world”, says group spokesperson Farin Dickinson.
She and her colleagues - Georgia Billman, Katie Shepherd, Cody Wadham-Burke and Nick Zeff, all from Auckland and aged 20 and 21 – were given free rein to design the logo, with the APEC colour palette the only guide they needed to keep to.
Explaining their process, Farin says Voices is about bringing people together so they wanted to represent that interconnectivity, while also paying homage to Auckland and New Zealand. “The intertwined blue shapes symbolise the islands of Aotearoa in an abstract way, with a similar curvature and the winding, long, white cloud form.”
The students were supervised by Art and Design Lecturer, Tatiana Tavares from the Department of Communication Design. “The VOTF project is an example of the real-life, practical industry experience students get when they study Communication Design with us at AUT. It means our graduates are even more prepared when they enter the workforce.”
The five students have never been involved with Voices of the Future in the past but say they now are considering doing so in the future. But, first, they are on the hunt for jobs in the advertising/design industry in New Zealand.
APEC Voices of the Future is an annual youth event held during APEC which brings together 18 to 24-year-olds from across the APEC region to discuss the big issues facing the world and have their voices heard. Hosted by AUT, it is being held on November 9 and 10, and is part of APEC Leaders’ Week, the culmination of New Zealand’s hosting of APEC 2021. At the end of Voices, youth delegates will present their Declaration to APEC 2021 Chair, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on behalf of the nearly one billion young people across the APEC region.