Influx

Educational establishments sometimes find it difficult to bring creativity to their marketing and branding efforts.

Given the increasing desire for everyone to learn a little creativity, I thought it was worth taking a look at the exploits of The Crucible, an institution designed just to do that.

Located in Oakland, The Crucible is a 30,000 sq ft plus space where you can learn how to make stuff, specifically-, welding, blacksmithing, foundry & mold making, glass, jewelry, neon & light, kinetics, machine shop, stone, woodworking, paper works, fire performance and ceramics.

Founded in 1999, for the past seven years its organized a Fire Arts Festival as a fund-raiser. Thousands of people pay $45 a head, some even more, to experience first hand the thrill of fire sculptures and performance.

It’s a great way to raise money, but it’s also a brand experience. You get to see, touch, smell and even taste The Crucible brand first hand.

It’s living, breathing, creative, interesting, edgy and exciting.

How would you create a Cruciblelike experience for your educational institution?

What would Harvard’s look like?

What would Cal-Berkeley do?

What about MIT?

VCU-Adcenter?

Here are some shorts from the last day of the Crucible’s Fire Arts Festival.
 
Created with Paul’s flickrSLiDR.

Posted by Ed Cotton