OCADU INDUSTRIAL DESIGN GRADEX 107
The Project
OCADU Industrial Design Graduation Exhibition 107. The first in-person GradEx since the pandemic.
Role
Aside from my responsibilities within the small team, I also took on the role of photographer. I was tasked with taking and creating headshots for each exhibitor as well as photo-documenting our process. Within the team, I focused most of my time on the physical layout where we conceptualized, designed, and created the physical space of the exhibition.
Overview
As part of the winter semester, we came together as a student body committee to organize and launch the 2022 OCADU ID GradEx 107 from the ground up. As the first in-person exhibition since the pandemic, we designed both a physical and web exhibition as a part of this year’s graduation show.
The 5 day event ran from May 11-15 and was hugely successful. Located off the main OCAD U building, Industrial Design 2022 exhibited in the Rosalie Sharp Pavilion. By taking advantage of our street exposure, we saw a great turnout and great traffic volume at the show.
Or maybe it was because of the free coffee..
With our coffee sponsor Faema, we were able to fuel event-goers with lattes, americano's, espressos, and cold brews for all five days. Mizzica were also kind enough to supply gelato for our Industry Night event on the 12th to make delicious affogatos.
We first tackled our identity and brand for this year's exhibition. With this years exhibition being the first in person GradEx since the start of COVID 19 two years ago, we found ourselves caught in a difficult middle ground looking towards an increasingly uncertain future.
We hoped to exemplify the hope and optimism that many people around the world were starting feel again. And as designers, we often find ourselves imagining and working towards an optimistic future within the constraints and realities of the present.
Future Perfect
/ˈfyo͞oCHər pərˈfekt/
noun
a tense of verbs expressing expected completion in the future, in English exemplified by will have done.
from Oxford's English Dictionary
Future Perfect encapsulates the essence of our year and our hopes. Below are a few of the final pages from our identity guide.
Our first challenge of the winter semester revolved around organizing ourselves and our peers to make a push to make GradEx 107 happen. We received very little news or support from OCAD administration. There was a point in time when the likelihood of GradEx for Industrial Design seemed slim.
With help from Industrial Design faculty and professors, the committee was able to make a strong push in the winter semester to gain momentum and rally enthusiasm for the exhibition within our program.
We did scouting and planning for several locations before finally being able to lock in our spot. While the location was being finalized, we used this time to plan budgets, secure sponsors and plan our build for the space. With very limited funding from OCAD, the support we received from Eventscape and SAID was instrumental in making the entire event possible and successful.
The physical build of the space came together within a week of the event. We sought to maximize our visibility by utilizing the street level windows that ran along the entire venue. vinyl adverts that highlighted the event and helped direct foot traffic was strategically laid out in the area. Although I'll still admit the big free coffee sign probably saw the most return on investment.
With most projects nearing completion, we had a better understanding of the type of space individuals required to best exhibit their work and adapted to meet those needs on the fly. We were able to provide dark room spaces for projects that needed visual isolation or sound isolation while still maximizing their visibility to exhibition-goers.
OCADU INDUSTRIAL DESIGN GRADEX 107
