NUCA Digital Exhibition Space
The Norwich University College of the Arts have an annual exhibition to celebrate the work of students who are graduating in the Summer. The Games Art & Design department is one of the most modern courses which runs at the institution, giving students the opportunity to imagine new computer games and eventually build them.
For the 2009 event, the teaching staff wanted to represent the videos and designs produced over the academic year in the truest form, as they were intended to be viewed, digitally.
Selesti's office is based up the road from the university, formerly Norwich Arts School and having worked closely with them previously, including sponsoring the Brainchild business competition, they invited us in to suggest how we'd produce what they needed.
What we scoped was a purpose-built portal which allows NUCA to upload student profiles along with portfolios and various media. This was based loosely on the functionality of the Media Place Holder you'll see on our website which showcases our work. This approach was taken because it suited both the budget, timescales and above all, met their requirements snugly.
A content management system was developed behind the front end to enable the staff to add the Jpegs, PNG, FLV and other file types to the media player, and keep the content up to date. Other options which were offered but were later cut out of the project included offering the students a login to solely their page on the portal, as then they could refer prospective employers to view a constantly updated CV of what they'd been up to. However as most of these student had establish online spaces already, the thinking was to emphasise this as a product of the NUCA course, rather than of the students within it.
With the larger organisations, especially those that have recently undertaken a rebranding process, design corporate guidelines are always strict and this was another project that relied on us both technically and creatively applying our scope within the realms of what was possible and what could be implemented within the procedures the client had in place. Testament to how comfortable we are with working within tight specifications - this portal only took 6 weeks to scope, design, build and populate with two years' worth of student's content.
An offline version of the portal was created for the end of year celebration night itself in June, with consultancy and technical expertise lent on the night to NUCA to ensure that the content was visible and as intended for the packed exhibition space.
This portal will be added to the main nuca.ac.uk site over the next month and then can be utilised as a show case next year with a new crop of successful students' work.
Visit: http://nuca.selesti.com/
