If you’ve been stopped in the street by a number of too-cool-for-school-advertising-students and asked numerous questions about your local area in Miami then you’ve probably been involved in this…
Having undertaken an intense, 10week course in Product Creation at Miami Ad School the students uncovered key insights and challenges the following areas and their communities are faced with; Miami Beach (no parking and dog waste issues), Brickell (harnessing wind issues, lack of recycling and outdoor meeting spaces), Wynwood (divided communities) and Midtown (empty retail spaces).
The students then developed interesting product design solutions to answer these challenges, which they presented on Friday to; Miami City Commissioner and Chamber of Commerce President, Jerry Libbin , Diana Fontani Martinez (Office of the Mayor and Commission Chief Aide to the Commissioner Gongora), Executive Director of Environmental Coalition of Miami and the Beaches (ECOMB) Luiz Rodrigues (AKA ‘Mr. Green’) and community-consultant-creative-mind-and-loyal-Miami-resident Dale Penn;
“I really appreciate the hard work and creative energy that went into each of these projects. I hope the Miami Ad School will make this a part of its ongoing program, as raising awareness of societal issues and possible creative solutions provides tremendous potential for improving the quality of life in our community – and provides students with the opportunity to gain insight into ways they can use their lives to impact our world.”
Each were impressed with the presentation and happy to be seeing a group of students getting involved with the world that exists on their doorstep.
Jerry Libbin left the meeting inspired saying; “I thought it was very stimulating… they were brilliant, well-thought out ideas. Some of them could definitely be use-able in the city of Miami”. Libbin went on to say; “We’ve had a number of interns from Miami Ad School who have been outstanding and infact hired two to become full time at the Chamber. The school does a fantastic job with training them and we look forward to hiring more.”
In a city that often gets labeled as ‘a party-goers paradise’ and runs on ‘Latin time’ I really hope that we begin to see the student population reach out to the local scene and apply the skills they are learning in their classrooms or lecture halls. Miami has a huge number of opportunities to shape and nurture their culture and the Public Space Innovation Project was able to nurture a sense of pride and accomplishment amongst the students.
After their presentations some of the students commented on how they were surprised to learn that applying the creative process this way could assist them in the arrival at a product design solution and not simply another ad campaign. Jasper Dai, a budding Art Director at the school and integral member of the Public Space Innovation Collective said; “I thoroughly enjoyed seeing and learning a different spin on the creative process.”
Here’s to hoping that Miami in 2011 nurtures this optimism and embraces the sustainability challenges faced by the world. It falls on the shoulders of any entrepreneurial spirit in Miami to conjure up support and rally these creative ideas and see some of these solutions brought to life. Those who step up to the plate will be contributing to an exciting future, a changing face and a new emerging cultural landscape in Miami.
Nice job class of 2010.
