University of Now

University of South Australia had run the same student intake campaign for the last few years; corporate looking, serious and inauthentic.

The research and strategy suggested that The University of South Australia is the ‘university of now’: contemporary, innovative and relevant to our modern world. Although the media dictated quite a traditional campaign it was imperative that we used a modern design aesthetic and spoke to new students in a progressive way, showing how UniSA embraces and inspires passion, optimism and success.

With an aesthetic evoking ‘Humans of New York’ we photographed and interviewed nearly 60 students over the course of a few days.

We shot in a very unorthodox way for the client but it worked really well – roaming the campuses looking for students rather than in-studio or on a highly organised shoot. After a short interview we quickly took wide and close ups of the students. Using a shallow depth of field and shadowed light gave an intimate feel to the portraits with the spur of the moment nature of the setup allowing it to be more authentic.

Care was taken in post production creating a highly stylised and ‘instagram filter’ style colouring which meant that when all Universities have their posters next to each other in the local pub ours was sure to stand out.

The interviews and wider shots gave us content for the website with the close up shots providing striking visuals for the posters, adshels and billboards. Headlines inspired by the words of the students were written out by hand, scanned and placed over the top of the portraits to build the attitude.