SACES '17 - Kokka Branding Nomination Proposal

Kokka Night 2017 Kokka Branding Submission

WHO ARE WE? The Society for Architecture & Civil Engineering Students, SACES, is a Faculty Based Non-Profit Student Organisation that was founded in 1974. The society’s mission statement is to bridge the students within the different streams together and to bring them clsoer through educational and social events. SACES acts as the students’ voice both within and outside the University.

Our events are aimed at being inclusive of both students of the Faculty of the Built Environment and students from other faculties. We are fortunate to have a very responsive and active student body at our faculty, further encouraging us to contribute more to the students’ experience at University. Our branding has helped us maintain this positive relationship, strengthening our visions and giving life to our ideas.

INTRODUCTION Throughout the years, SACES has created its own image, one which is unique, ‘down to earth’ and approachable. This is best exemplified through our events. We always strive to find the perfect location, seeking to offer a truly unique and unforgettable experience.

Successful events require extensive preparation, in fact, we take our events very seriously and include the faculty students as much as possible beforehand. Branding plays a major role in the preparation of our events.

Our PR focus on using clean and sharp designs, which are eye-catching in the most subtle way. Ask any student on campus to describe SACES and the word ‘black’ will most likely pop up. Black features in most of our branding and has undoubtedly become our signature colour. We are architects after all, and we will always choose black, at least until a darker colour comes out.

SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING Social Media plays a high role in the branding of our events and organization’s promotion. SACES makes use of a variety of social media platforms; from our own website, to Facebook, Instagram, Issuu, Behance and Snapchat, giving great priority to the quality and consistency of all our posts.

Our event cover photos, posters and ‘titles’ are always well thought out, aiming for originality and ‘wit’. A few examples of such event titles are ‘STRIP: Rethinking our Routes’, ‘Sensing Spaces’, ‘Machina’ and ‘Disiecta’, where we try to include a double meaning through the event names rather than going directly with the obvious associated names with any of our events. The PR team work together in preparation for every event, receiving feedback from the rest of the executive team and are constantly working on improving the image of the organization to the public.

Our Instagram account works hand-in-hand with our Facebook account and, like our Snapchat account, helps engage our audience more, keeping them up to date with the team’s progress and ‘behind the scenes’ preparations, reflecting our organisation’s ‘welcome to all’ approach.

On the other hand, our Issuu and Behance accounts help us document our work and students work during our events publicly. These help us show off the quality of the work and skills learnt by the students through most of our events (for example: workshops, discussions and competitions).

Our website, however, is the centre of all our social media, where one can find links to our other accounts, our Architecture and Design Blog, events, gallery, online store and direct contact address. This reflects the epitome of our organisation’s branding and the image.

Speaker Announcements STRIP - SACES x KSU

Speaker Announcements STRIP - SACES x KSU

Saces Review Launch

Saces Sweater Launch

SACES SWEATERS Each year, SACES launches a series of sweatshirts available for sale to students. The sweatshirts are designed to be simple, casual and comfortable.

The sweatshirts sell SACES’ design principles – simplicity and obscurity. The sweaters are all black adorned with witty quotes relating to architecture students’ lives.

ARCOHOLICS SACES Parties are truly unique events – our main event, “Arcoholics” is one of the most expected and best received events of the year. SACES Parties have gained reputation along the years for their unrefined, underground theme. Each “Arcoholics” is based around a specific concept.

Along the years we’ve explored industrial, philosophical and anatomical concepts within our parties. We strive to pick the best locations that suit the theme of the event – usually desolate, obscure sites. The sites are then often subtly decorated to meet the specific event title and concept.

One of the most important aspects to our events is the marketing and build up to the party. Social media plays a vital role in this process. Ambiguous posters and videos are shared to further strengthen the party theme and atmosphere.

STRIP - RETHINKING OUR ROUTES STRIP was our first proper event in collaboration with KSU as part of Nature Week at the University. This is a newly introduced ‘genre’ of events where we aimed to tackle local affairs, attracting both architecture students and students from other faculties. This event was aimed towards addressing the issues of sustainable development, especially in the context of our island. However, due to the over-use of terms such as ‘sustainable’ and ‘development, and such discussions, we wanted our event to move away from the conventional elements associated with such a topic.

The team brainstormed for an original event name, ‘STRIP: Rethinking our Routes’, having a double meaning and metaphoric comparison between our environment and its abuse. Similarly, our branding and organization of the event moved towards a more neutral, pro-active approach. We approached speakers from different aspects of society: a young architect, the faculty dean/president of the chamber of architects, a political cartoonist/artist/architect and the secretary general and spokesperson of Alternattiva Demokratika.

The event displayed our signature white DEX Tipton chairs along with concrete bricks which were set up as ‘side tables’ for the speakers and which were potted with plants and small cacti in order to discretely link the discussion based on development and our surrounding environment.

KAZINATA The Kazinata event is organized frequently throughout the year – its objective is to provide students and architects with an opportunity to socialize in a relaxed, comfortable environment. The “kazinata” concept best suits SACES when it comes to organizing an event with such a laid-back, social theme it further embraces our branding image of respect for local culture and simpler, less refined experiences.

ARCHITRIP Architrip is SACES’ summer holiday event.

It was first launched in 2015 as a trip to the Milan 2015 Expo, and will be relaunched this year with a trip to Budapest this coming September, visiting the 2017 Design Week.

We keep an eye out for design/architecture orientated events such as the Milan Expo and Design Week. The planning, choice of accommodation and sites visited all hint at conformity to SACES’ design ethos.

SACES REVIEW The Review is our most recently revived project – a publication which was compiled, edited and circulated by architecture students back in the 80s and 90s. The review was then discontinued after 1993. This year saw the launch of the revival of the Review, revised as a publication which combines students’ works, interesting articles by professionals and students. The review is encased by a minimal cover design, again fitting in with the SACES simplistic and honest branding design.

DAHNA FIL-KAMPANJA Dahna fil Kampanja was an event which was first launched by the 1987 SACES team. The event is kept simple – a typical Maltese summer barbeque which is aimed at reuniting students before returning back to the faculty for the first semester.

MEMBERSHIP CARDS As part of our branding campaign and SACES initiatives, we introduced a Membership Card which students from the Faculty of the Built Environment can make use of in order to receive discounts from a variety of our sponsors. These membership cards were kept simple and monochrome – typical of SACES branding and promotion.

WORKSHOPS Our workshops are one of the most anticipated SACES events. Two workshops are held each year, one before the Easter Holidays and the other during November.

These workshops include a 3-day event during which architecture students are given a theme to explore through various media which are then presented to the student body and the Faculty.

The Easter workshop takes place at the Faculty while the November workshop is hosted in a new location every year. A party is usually held on the first night of these workshop, also welcoming students not taking part in the workshop, as well as from other faculties. Both workshops require a lot of work in getting everything organised and getting the event branding done.

One of the main characteristics of the workshops and the workshop parties are that they are usually organized in unusual or abandoned places which we literally have to hunt down. We are notorious for our events and parties and work hard to maintain our reputation.

2017 Easter Workshop Wristbands

COMPETITIONS Throughout the years, SACES has collaborated with several studios and companies to organize competitive events.

Last year’s competition event was in collaboration with DEX workspaces - a photographic competition which aimed to combine Vitra Designs with the creative style often associated with SACES and architecture students.

ARCHIBABBLE Our Archibabble events include a formal, educational discussion-based talk addressing any relevant topic related to architecture. SACES organises two Archibabbles. These discussion encourage the students to educate themselves more on such topics in an environment away from the lecture halls in University. It is an opportunity for us to include the students more and introduce them to new aspects of design and discover different approaches to our field of study. This event allows students to voice their opinion and pose questions to a panel of speakers. Archibabbles are organised in places of cultural significance, which further encourages students to attend.

SACES TEAM 2017 Thomas Mifsud Julia Frendo Mattea Ciantar Susannah Farrugia Samuel Ciantar Edward John Zammit Sephora Schembri Gregory Buttigieg Alannah Xuereb