STORY AND MEDIA BY VANESSA GILLIS
Do you have your S together?
This year’s President’s Challenge has students and faculty creating an S that represents their program in order to promote the college’s new brand.
“[We did it] to get some school spirit going and grab attention to it,” said Dean Lorenz, director of marketing and brand strategy.
Every year, the executive committee comes up with a different challenge to promote the school and its students, said President Jeff Zabudsky.
“They are usually to engage the Sheridan community, but also to have an impact on the community at large,” Lorenz explained. “It’s basically to get some excitement about our creative campus.”
This year, the executive committee has challenged to college to “get your S together.”
Faculty and students are invited to showcase the college’s creativity by creating an S, either 2D or 3D, which best represents their program.
“Given that we are launching a new visual representation, we wanted to align a visual identity that sustains the brand,” said Zabudsky.
The submissions, which are currently on the President’s Challenge website, will be judged by a “distinguished judging panel of Sheridan VIPs.”
According to Lorenz, the submissions will be judged based on how innovative they are, the strategy behind them, how they portray their target audience, and whether they have an impact beyond Sheridan, such as something that showcases the program to parents or prospective students.
There is also a chance for the submissions to win the People’s Choice Award, which is decided by the community based on how many likes and shares it receives.
Lorenz said the prize is more about showcasing and promoting the program than anything.
“It’s about the recognition and making their S a permanent feature somewhere.”
The winning S could be put onto the Sheridan website to advocate the program, or it could become a sculpture somewhere on campus, depending on the medium of the S, said Lorenz.
“It allows people to come up with a creative way of showcasing the iconic Sheridan S,” said Zabudsky.
The challenge actually began in the fall, but Lorenz said the “momentum wasn’t taking off.”
That’s when they decided to put an S on each campus, such as the recycled paper airplanes in the SCAET building at Trafalgar, or the “spilt milk” at Davis, to promote the challenge.
“It was getting buried, so we did something bigger to get more attention,” said Lorenz.
If anyone is interested in joining the challenge, images can be uploaded on www.presidentschallenge.sheridancollege.ca.
The submission deadline is June 30. #GetYourSTogether