In 2023, I created a brief for third year students at MDX Uni: an Ethical Consumer Brand Refresh. Ethical Consumer is a long-running research organisation (est. 1989) rating over 40,000 brands and products to support ethical purchasing.

Students were tasked with re-branding the organisation specifically for a Gen-Z audience, balancing a fresh, user-friendly, non-"preachy" aesthetic with the need to communicate complex, detailed content concisely. Deliverables included a full identity (logo, typography, colour palette, rating icons, a "best buy" stamp, and an art direction/illustration approach). 16 pages of redesigned magazine content (covers, contents, a news spread, and a shopping guide with rating illustrations) And a choice between an app concept (for scanning and rating products) or a full Instagram brand presence.

Assessment went well beyond visual execution: students were marked on the depth and breadth of their research (including direct engagement with the target audience), and, notably, on critical engagement with sustainability itself, being asked to interrogate the ethics of their own design choices, from print versus digital impact to whether their imagery gave genuine agency to the people it depicted, rather than treating the brief's eco-conscious framing at face value.