Kelowna is known as a city of green thumbs. And this year, the ever-popular Kelowna Garden Tour has been taken over by Ballet Kelowna as a fundraiser. Now in it’s 15th year, the tour has been renamed to “Flower Power”, and organizer Debbie MacMillan wanted to give the tour a new fitting look to go with the new name. So she got in contact with Christina Baumgartner, Graphic Design & Web Development Department Head at our Kelowna campus. She tasked her graduating class to design a new logo and website for the tour in groups, as part of their Employability Skills 200 course.

Last week, the two Kelowna graphic design student teams presented their work to the organizers. Soon the winning team’s branding and website will go live to promote the event!

Getting involved in community initiatives like this gives our design students a competitive edge and strong portfolio content upon graduation. Department Head Christina Baumgartner says that she seeks out these kinds of opportunities, because it gives students the exact kind of experience that they’ll be relying on when working with future clients.

And the results are in…

Both teams did a great job. Congrats to Jamal, Nico and David – the branding on the top left was chosen by Ballet Kelowna to represent the event!

For more info on the project, check out The Daily Courier’s coverage of the project, below.

What is Employability Skills? – Course Descriptions

Employability Skills 100, 200: In today’s marketplace technical skills and talent are not sufficient to find and keep high quality jobs. Employers desire candidates with a high level of employability skills that include personal management, communication, problem solving, positive attitudes and behaviors, adaptability, and teamwork skills. Employability Skills 100 and 200 provide a space to explore the realities of the work world through a variety of real world case studies, breadth and depth training opportunities, and/or work/production projects where employability skills (covered in the Personal & Professional Development series of courses) can be practiced. Each term the faculty will determine an appropriate focus for the courses that best serves the needs of the student cohorts or individual students, and local industry. Potential topics include specialized local industry needs such as industry overviews, guest speakers, case studies, or projects; interdisciplinary breadth and depth courses, or special or advanced technical skills, assigned per class or per individual need; class or individual development assignments, and projects based on class or individual needs (as determined by the instructor or Department Head or industry mentor), and work experience or simulated work experience projects and group projects.