Students help Treasure Island
Students from Sussex Downs College have been commissioned to produce a series of animated children’s stories for a Hove based online toy seller. The online videos will be launched at a Graduation Show this week.
Kavan Webb is a graduate from the degree course and one of the co-founders of the company. He said: "The students have created a fantastic set of cartoons which will be featured on our web site. Bertie the Pirate Cartoon is going to a popular and much loved favourite with our young audience.
We were recently nominated for the Online Toy Retailer of the Year 2009 by the British Toy and Hobby Association, against household names Amazon, Argos, Littlewoods Direct and The Entertainer. Whilst not winning it provided us with a new strategy.
Not ones to sit on our laurels we decided to come up with a creative way to further our brand and hopefully win the accolade in 2010. We have a mascot for our company called Bertie the Pirate who features on our website, literature and also has his own website aimed at children which contain games, printable activity sheets and more for children to play with at www.bertiethepirate.co.uk.
Having previously attended Sussex Downs College in Lewes and completed a HND in Multimedia, I had the idea of contacting the college to see if they would be interested in creating some animated stories for our Bertie the Pirate website. This would give the students the opportunity of doing a fun project, experience with dealing with an actual client, and also eventually once complete have their work displayed on our website for everyone to enjoy.
I want to pay tribute to the students who have been working their socks off to finish project led by Kate Williams and Andrew Williamson. The project is now complete and the cartoons are going to be launched on our website the same day as the students end of year show on 10 June 2010."
Kate Williams, curriculum leader for digital media design said: "When Kavan made contact, I jumped at the chance of our students getting involved in this super project. Kavan attended Sussex Downs College in 2003 and since then his company has really taken off.
As a college we have been producing a range of training and awareness raising material for a variety of clients over the years. The project with Treasure Island Toys has enabled our students to play their part in a very important project. It has provided them with the opportunity to work with a real client, helping them to identify their needs and progress the project to a great completion. It demonstrates that the students have mastered a broad of skills including concept planning, filming, editing, animation and design."
For more information and to view the videos go to www.treasureislandtoys.co.uk, www.bertiethepirate.co.uk or sussexdowns.ac.uk (Cartoons available to view from Thursday 10th June 2010)
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