It’s Nice That

Will and Alex of It's Nice That

Students from University College Falmouth’s BA(Hons) Photography, Graphic Design, Journalism, PR and Illustration courses came together for an innovative interdisciplinary masterclass last week.

Alex Bec and Will Hudson from cult creative website, itsnicethat.com ran the workshop, which focused on pitching and developing fresh ideas for new publishing formats, content and design in a competitive media environment.

After sharing the vision behind itsnicethat and the entrepreneurial nerve that has led to its success, Will and Alex tasked students with collaborating on a proposal for a new publication in just one hour.

Small interdisciplinary groups rose to the challenge. Submissions were then be judged by Will and Alex, and the winning entry received a £500 prize to fund the production of their magazine.

(For more information on the winning groups publication, read more here.)

The duo in action

Student feedback about the event was unanimously positive. In response to the question, ‘What’s the most important thing you have learned in today’s session?’ more than 40 responses echoed one student’s view: ‘That you cannot do everything yourself! You need to work with different disciplines to generate more ideas that you may have not thought of before’, as well as ‘be ambitious’, ‘be dedicated’ and ‘anything is possible’.

“I am thrilled that UCF’s students have responded so positively to this event,” commented Anna Kiernan, Course Leader of BA(Hons) Journalism. “I approached Will and Alex because their work across disciplines is exciting and innovative and, crucially, commercially successful. The fact that they are so young was particularly inspiring for our students who are tired of hearing about the death of newspapers.”

Paul Inman, UCF’s Director of the School of Media, added: “This is a good example of an initiative that encouraged both interdisciplinary practice and entrepreneurialism.”

The event was hosted by UCF’s BA(Hons) in Journalism and sponsored by the University College’s Learning & Teaching department.