![Steve Peck](https://www.uc.edu/news/articles/legacy/enews/2006/11/e4640/jcr:content/image.img.cq5dam.thumbnail.500.500.jpg/1534516950268.jpg)
Ad It Up: Students Form Firm to Design Ads, Promotions for Campus Groups
The challenging curriculum of an internationally recognized design program along with paid, professional design jobs for the likes of consumer giant Procter & Gamble and international corporate identity consultants Lippincott Mercer werent quite enough to keep University of Cincinnati graphic design senior Steve Peck busy enough.
Thats why
College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning
student Peck along with UC
student Sean Cosgrove founded their own on-campus advertising and promotion firm to serve the needs of student groups. They founded the group in 2003, were able to successfully assist any number of clients, and this fall, find the firm growing.
BANG Bearcat Advertising & Networking Group started out with a dedicated two-man crew, but this fall, the service firm stands at 25 staffers along with any number of design student freelancers, according to co-founder Peck, 22, of Montgomery.
Peck didnt found the group because he needed the experience. Thanks to UCs vaunted cooperative education program, hell graduate with about 18 months of paid, professional experience with internationally prominent consumer goods, consulting and, yes, national advertising agencies where he worked on setting brand goals and strategies, on interactive Web sites and on commercial and print ads.
When I came to campus as a freshman, explains Peck, I looked with the eyes of a designer at what student groups were putting up around campus to promote their events and activities. Their marketing efforts, be they posters, fliers, give-away T-shirts or whatever, were amateur looking. Really, I just wanted to help groups promote themselves using good design. Nothing more than that.
Steve Peck with fellow students
Its true, Peck and the growing membership of BANG doesnt charge student group clients except to cover the cost of materials. Marketing solution projects have included design of advertising and promotional give-aways for one-time service and entertainment events designs like handbills, posters, cups and T-shirts. BANG also conducts branding and identity consulting for groups, as well as Web design and e-fliers. Clients have included
- UC Student Government
- Candidates running for student government
- Men of Metro service group
- Sigma Sigma Carnival annual event
- Fraternities and sororities
BANG now includes graphic design, pre-med, finance/accounting, communication and marketing majors. For a small project, one student will serve as an account manager working with anywhere from two or more designers to meet client needs.
Priya Varma, a pre-med senior from Cleveland, joined BANG as a sophomore and has served the group as internal president (something akin to an account manager) where she served as the liaison with clients, handled project budgets and supervised the work of designers. (BANG also has an external president responsible for obtaining new business for the group.)
One of the reasons Varma, who previously majored in biology and then organizational leadership before switching to pre-med, said she joined the group was because advertising and promotion affects all our lives every day. Its part of the real world we live in. So, even for students who are not coming from a design or business background, it benefits them to learn about the basics of these promotional tools. Ive learned so much about marketing the right message at the right place to the right target group.
Steve Peck
Peck has been happy other students like Varma are joining the group, not least of which because doing most of the design work in the first year meant a lot of late nights for me where four hours sleep was common. Hes also happy to see the groups work around campus, even when no one else know its their work. Its awesome to look around campus and see items youve designed, Peck says
Any student group interested in working with BANG should e-mail Megan Knight at knightmn@email.uc.edu.
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