In June, the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Education hosted a Digital Media Summer School as part of our School and College Engagement work. 

This two day event at our Canterbury campus – designed by our Digital Media team – brought together local groups of Sixth Form students. This was more than just a taster day, and instead offered students a practical opportunity to find out what it’s like to live the life of a Digital Media graduate, using skills they would learn and develop during the course.  

The students were given the brief: ‘Grow’, an independent and sustainable new company is looking for freelancers to work on marketing materials for them. 

During their two days on campus the students took part in four different activities; creating animated gifs, printed bags, original artwork and film-making.

Activity Showcase

1. Digital Animation

Using Adobe After Effects, students learnt how to create and animate a growing flower animation that would ideally be placed as a promotion piece for social media. Some of the wonderful examples below.

2. Digital Maker

Here students explored the process of turning digital designs into physical objects using vinyl cutting techniques. The workshop involved creating a tote bag design for a sustainable start-up company ‘Grow’ to be handed out at promotional fairs.  

3. Digital Art

In this practical task students used SLR cameras to capture images that were manipulated using Adobe Photoshop to create a piece of original artwork.

4. Mobile Film Making

Exploring cinematic b-roll and other mobile film making techniques, students recreated a product video which can be showcased via social media platforms such as Instagram. 

School and College Engagement

The Digital Media Summer School is one example of the many post-16 activities we offer on our Schools and College Engagement website. This work has historically been known as Outreach, but while it is true that this work continues to hold important values in raising aspirations and widening participation in the south east, our work also has a huge impact on recruitment. Over one third of our student population come from schools that we regularly work with or hold partnerships with, and using these relationships we hope to increase the presence of our courses in the minds of students around Kent, Essex, London, and wider with our many new digital sessions.

If you are a School or College interested in booking the Digital Media Summer School, or other activity, please check out the School and College Engagement website, or if you have any ideas about how we can support you in a way not already on the website, please contact SCE@canterbury.ac.uk.

Check out our Socials:

Twitter @CCCUArtsHumsEd / @DMedia_CCCU

Instagram @cccudigitalmedia / @cccu_scandi

If you are a member of CCCU staff and would like to develop your School & College Engagement portfolio, please contact FAHE@canterbury.ac.uk