UNaverage STB x NTU Student Live Brief

Over the last few months, we’ve been running a live brief with the Graphic Design students at Nottingham Trent University. The brief is all about rethinking the familiar.

We asked students to take a product category that feels tired or predictable and completely reinvent it. That could mean reimagining how it looks, how it feels, how it’s used or even who it’s for.

It’s not just about standing out visually. It’s about purposeful disruption and finding smart, strategic ways to challenge the norms while still resonating with your audience.

Students were tasked with developing a bold brand, a disruptive packaging design, and a smart launch campaign thinking through every step of the customer journey. From discovery to unboxing to post-purchase engagement, we pushed them to go beyond the basics and make the packaging part of the product story.

To keep the brief grounded in industry reality, students were also required to attend interim and final critiques at our studio. These sessions gave them the chance to pitch their thinking, test their ideas, and get real feedback from our creative team. This isn’t just a university project, it’s a full creative process: research, strategy, design, and storytelling all rolled into one. And it’s designed to get students thinking like the designers, strategists, and creative thinkers the industry needs right now.

We believe this brief gives students more than just a portfolio piece. It gives them a chance to prove they can analyse, challenge, invent, and design with intention. Not just to fit in, but to stand out, connect, and make people think differently.

It was great to work with STB again this year on a live brief with our second-year students on the BA(Hons) Graphic Design course.

As ever, the brief was challenging, and this year’s brief gave the students an opportunity to further push and explore their creative skills in branding and going beyond the obvious.

Stocks Taylor Benson kindly hosted the final presentations at their studio, providing a ‘real world’ experience and further enhancing our student’s confidence in presenting their concepts, they all really enjoyed the opportunity and found the experience invaluable!

Rob Newton
Module Leader Graphic Design
Nottingham Trent University