Rebranding the brandedDigital communication strategy for the Oswin Project – an ex-offenders’ charitymore on: oswinproject.org.uk

HEI: Northumbria UniversityCourse(s)/Research body: BA (hons) Interactive Media DesignMain Partners: The Oswin ProjectFunders: List fundersPlace: Northumberland, United Kingdom

Keywords: education, job creation, small enterprise

The context • In the UK 50% prisoners released

from prison will reoffend with a year and 75% will do so with 9 years of leaving prison*.

• The statistics are even worse for offenders in youth custody with 75% reoffending with a year of release*.

• The problem is on the increase with prison populations having doubled in the last 20 years*.

• 68% of prisoners leaving prison reported that having a job would be an important factor in stopping them reoffending**.

• For 50% of vacancies employers are likely to reject even those with the most minor criminal convictions**. MoJ Breaking the cycle; Effective punishment, rehabilitation and sentencing of offenders. December 2010 Green Paper (*)Employment – DWP Research Report number 155 – 2001 (**)

Project Response…The Oswin Project aims to give ex-offenders a second chance by training them in a sort after trade, and importantly giving them real work.In order to help raise awareness of the projects aims, encourage support and engage with the wider community, students and staff at Northumbria University worked with Trustees to help define their visual identity, communication strategy and produce design collateral requirements.

Reverend Fiona Sample – Founder of the Oswin Project• Motivation – Fiona has visited prisoners many time and heard

stories of no jobs or prospects when leaving prison. As a teacher and educator too her motivation is to help break this cycle of re-offending.

• Assets – Vision, motivation, funder raiser.• Outcomes – A physical and virtual identity for the project, a website

for communication with stakeholders and the wider public. A relationship with the University for future development

Trustees• Motivation – To help bring the vision to

fruition. All have a strong ties to the region and a moral sense of community leadership.

• Assets – Personal motivation, professional and community networks, funder raisers.

• Outcomes – Design expertise to help them visually validate their work and aid communication

Ex-offenders – the ‘Oswinners’• Motivation for the design aspect of the project: More awareness

of the project and better communication will enhance the chances of continued employment through the project

• Assets – Individual case study contribution• Outcomes – Increased self-esteem and better work prospects

Students

• Motivation – Part of course work; live brief; learn new skills; contribution to portfolio

• Assets – Time, energy, creativity and relevant skills.• Outcomes – New knowledge, enhanced skills, greater

awareness of the issue, experience of how design can contribute to the resolution of a social issue or problem

ProcessThe design process for the client delivery and the learning experience for the students had to be carefully integrated. The simplicity of briefing and research, concept development, design protoyping and presentation phases for both clients and students masked a much more complex programme of learning.

Tools and methods…• Orientation meetings to help scope out requirements and also

Q&A sessions with students to get them on-board• Branding, Web Design and Social Media workshops with students

helped bring them up-to-speed with required tools and design methods.

• Crit and feedback sessions with students and trustees to help shape project outcomes.

• Onsite visits to the pilot project building site to see work at first hand and share design work with the first ex-offenders.

Role of Design Design played a traditional role in the process of social innovation. The identity work helped visually establish the project is the eyes of its stakeholders, the website provides a low cost communication platform for the trustees to communicate with various audiences from ex-offenders to potential sponsors.

Project output and impact:

• Visual identity system and associated design collateral • Email and website for communication• The collaboration itself became a news worthy item that raised

awareness of the project and the undergraduate programme.

Learning outcomes• For the students, the live project gave them real-world learning

experience in order to test their newly acquired skills, but perhaps more importantly gave them the first-hand experience and personal reward of third sector work.

• For Northumbria University it met an institutional goal to engage more with the region.

• For the course it continued an on-going interest in working with third sector clients and created welcome publicity.

• For the trustees, they have an identity system and website that they could not afford, and a relationship with Northumbria University for future projects.

Successes and Shortcomings/ Barriers and Enablers• The successes – design elements were delivered on time and to budget, the

students more than met their required learning outcomes, the Oswin Project and Northumbria University have a closer working relationship.

• Design could have played an even greater role in the project’s ‘design’ from a service perspective if Northumbria University been involved at an earlier stage.

• Few barriers other than running at the speed of the students’ own development.• The great enablers were the trustees and the enthusiasm of the students, their

collective energy made this design project happen.