Hosting over 100 students at its Verwood site, just north of Bournemouth, the Dayfold team will show them a variety of printing and finishing techniques with traditional and digital machinery.
The event is part of a course set up by the AUB in partnership with Dayfold, Foilco, GF Smith, and cosmetics retailer Lush, a group that first came together at an event organised by Dayfold in 2022 to promote print in education.
Students on the course, supported by Lush, will be tasked with creating designs for special edition soaps, which will be used in the company’s festival-based marketing campaign, with soaps distributed to mucky revellers at festivals like Glastonbury and Womad.
Those students whose designs are chosen for the final campaign will be offered design internships at the firm.
Del Simmons, Dayfold’s managing director – and recent purchaser of the business via an October MBO – told Printweek that 2022’s industry event sparked enough interest to encourage AUB to reconfigure its graphic design course towards print.
He said: “Next week, we’ll kick off: the brief will be given to the students [for the promotional campaign] and then they come here for two days, and we talk them through all the different processes.
“They’ll then go and meet GF Smith and Foilco at the University, and then they have until March to produce their designs.”
Simon Allen, senior R&D creative production support at Lush, said it was vital for students to get the hands-on experience of print that Dayfold could offer.
Speaking to Printweek, he said: “I think once you have spent some time inside of a print house, your eyes open to what is achievable.
“I often walk away from visiting Dayfold inspired, or come away with different ideas and new techniques to try and elevate the print here at Lush.
“They do very high detail, high embellishment work, so it makes perfect sense that when we’re talking about education and elevating print, that these guys can pass on some of that information, and inspire students to get hands on with paper, foils and embossing – all of that fun stuff.”
