SPECTRA: MURDOCH OPEN SHOWCASE 2021
Spectra is the fourth iteration of the Murdoch Open Showcase, an annual Murdoch University student-organised event exhibiting works created by creative media students. Like a white light beam travelling through a prism and turning into a rainbow, Spectra represents a student’s university journey from connecting with other students to being exposed to different experiences, resulting in expanding the spectrum of who they are when this phase of their lives ends.
Event photography by Declan Young
BRINGING THE EVENT TO LIFE
This project was a four month endeavour that involved a team of 26 designers and an initial budget of $2000. In the lead up to the showcase, we researched, designed and prototyped whilst promoting and fundraising over $6000 to deliver a spectacular event. I mainly worked with three other designers on the showcase's online spaces. My primary responsibility was developing the front-end of the website.
Photography by Fioline Oetomo
ENCOURAGING A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF THE ARTS
People who aren’t involved in creative industries often don’t have a clear understanding of how specialised creative media is and the amount of work and effort that creatives put into their projects. To change people’s perception of creative fields, we created and implemented a content strategy for the website that not only provided students a platform to share their work but to also educate people on what students do and learn at university that transforms them into creatives. This was informed from our interviews and surveys in which we discovered that students and staff wanted the showcase to be a platform where students can gain exposure for their work, and the public were interested in interacting with people who made works shown at the showcase.
CREATING A PIECE OF A DESIGN SYSTEM
When designing the website, we had to make sure that it fit with the overall theme and the brand identity that the branding team came up with. We went through multiple iterations of wireframes but we managed to achieve a cohesive look by keeping the layout simple and staying in constant communication with the branding team.
It was during the development stage of the project where we had to be realistic about what we could achieve as a team of four in under three months. We ended up deciding to treat the website as an informative platform about each creative media discipline rather than a portfolio for individual student pieces to maximise our workflow. We also decided to produce video content about Spectra and the work that went into creating this showcase.
EVALUATING THE PROJECT
It’s hard to say for certain how well the website performed. Ideally, it would have been great to set up a web analytics tool to have access to data of the website’s traffic but our main priority was building and launching the website on time which I’m personally very proud of considering the constraints we were working under.
The showcase itself was a huge success despite our lack of financial support. 600 attendees visited the showcase, an increase from 2020. Because of this success, the 2022 team managed to secure significant financial support from Murdoch University.