Student Designers: Business Designed.

Student Designers hosted there first student workshop in Edinburgh last Friday and I was lucky enough to get the chance to take part.

The workshop began at 10am, myself and a few other students from DJCAD arrived slightly before to sign in and check out the space. Eight work stations were set up with post its, pencils and other tools we would need throughout the day.  After a quick introduction we were split into groups where we brainstormed a topic using post it notes for a set time before being moved on to the next topic.

After a coffee break and getting to know each other we were then re-grouped for the next part of the day. Each group was given a topic that was brainstormed earlier and asked to come up with a business design relating to the subject. Our topic was ‘Environmental Sustainability’ we looked into ideas of swap shops and rebranding charity shops but we eventually decided to go down the transportation route. The final idea was to create a bike scheme where students could hire bikes for free to cycle in and around the area surrounding their university. We developed personas of who would use the product then mapped out our business model on one of the sheets provided.

Later all the groups got together with a few beers and presented their work. Everyone’s ideas were quite impressive considering we only had a day to design something. A favourite of mine was ‘Digi Doc’ an interactive phone app to cut out the embarrassment of going to the doctor and telling them your problem face to face.

The main reason I wanted to take part in the workshop was to gain experience working with others outside of university and meet new people. I get really awkward speaking in public and knew we would have to pitch so I’m hoping the more experience I get doing this the more comfortable I’ll be. I also got to apply some knowledge and skills I’ve been acquiring in my Advertising & Branding module at uni. It was a really good day, we were kept busy, encouraged when we lost focus and given plenty of free food and drink throughout the day. I’d definitely like to take part again.