MA Publishing takeover 04: I’m Fine

In our last blog post we looked at a project aimed at helping young children express and manage their emotions, but it’s not just kids who need that kind of support – it’s adults too.

In a project designed to appeal to students who wanted to enhance their marketing and events management skills, opportunities were provided to work on ‘I’m Fine’, the University’s first day-long conference exploring the role of the Arts in supporting mental health.  

The logo for ‘I’m Fine’ commissioned by the MA Publishing team and produced by Graphic Design student Dan Drury

The team who handled this project (MA Publishing students Sophie Fisher, Emma Gill, Jennifer Lodge) had to operate in a highly responsive way: with no precedent to follow and with COVID changing the goalposts around in-person/online delivery, they needed to be resourceful, flexible and imaginative. Fortunately, they acquitted themselves with style.

Over a number of months the team coordinated the event programme, commissioned branding/design work, planned and ran a social media campaign, liaised with the University events team and eventually provided  support on the day. The roster of speakers and performers was broad-based with Raynor Winn (author of The Sunday Times’ best-seller The Salt Path) appearing alongside the University’s own Lecturer in Illustration Emma Carlisle (running an illustration workshop), mental health specialists, singers and poets. Engagement on the day was high and everything went without a hitch, despite the move to online. You can see examples of the design work and social media campaign below:

Programme for the University’s first ‘I’m Fine’ conference

Examples of the social media assets produced by the ‘I’m Fine’ events team

Lynda Cooper, Lecturer in Publishing commented on the work undertaken by the team:

“Marketing and PR are huge parts of the publishing industry now, with companies looking to recruit those with specialist knowledge and experience – it’s not enough to just love books, or just love social media; you need to have a firm grasp of both, as well as all of the other promotional tools and channels that are now available. It was great to be able to give students who are interested in this side of the industry some exposure to how it works in practice. They were fantastic at dealing with the uncertainty and pressure of an events-based project, and operated with real maturity and independence throughout”.