Student Louis Packham and family with DGT's Chairman, Peter Coles and Chief People Officer, Alexandra Bode-Tunji
When Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust launched our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) programme in July 2020 as part of the Joy at Work strategy, we wanted a unique branding for our launch. As part of our Community strategy, we reached out to North Kent College to see if their students would be interested in working with us on this.
The college's Art Department suggested running a competition with their students, with the winning submission becoming our EDI brand.
The submissions were of an extremely high standard but sadly, by the time the winner had been chosen, the pandemic had struck and we were unable to formally launch the design with colleagues, family and friends.
On Wednesday 17 January, we were delighted to welcome our winner, Louis Packham, and his family to formally unveil his winning design. The official artwork launch was led by Chief People Officer, Alexandra Bode-Tunji, and was attended by members of the Trust and North Kent College's Head of Curriculum for Art, Fashion and Photography (Creative Studios), Tom Legge.
Speaking about the project, Louis said: "I was first given the brief when I was 16 years old. I had just begun a Level 3 Graphic Design course, and this was my first opportunity to work on a real project, so I was eager to try it out. This was just before lockdown, so regrettably the presentation of the banner was postponed because Covid took hold of the nation.
DGT got back in touch in the autumn of 2022 after I had just received my Level 3 Graphic Design qualifications, but since 2020, my design skills have improved vastly, so I took on the challenge once more to create an entirely new design for the banner, which is being revealed. This is not only a big moment for Darent Valley, but a big moment for the beginning of my Graphic Design career as an 18-year-old student."
Tom Legge, Head of Curriculum for Art, Fashion and Photography (Creative Studios) at North Kent College added: "We are immensely proud of Louis and the design he has created for the hospital. What started off as a mural design for the hospital resulted in a brand design which will be rolled out. Louis was a 1st year Graphic and Illustration student when he undertook this design and beat learners with more experience to create it. He is now on our Foundation course and producing even stronger work.
We are proud to have worked with Darent Valley on this and look forward to partnering with them on other projects."
The Trust would like to extend huge thanks to Louis and North Kent College for their ongoing support with of initiative that is extremely important to us.