Students at CCAD Reinvent Airstream Travel Trailer to Appeal to Millennials

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Sept. 24, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD) announced it will hit the road on an eight-city tour with its newly designed Airstream travel trailer. The Airstream Pursuit was designed and named by a team of students who collaborated across all nine of the college's majors. Designed with millennials in mind, the trailer features a work area combined with a living space, geared toward young professionals looking for a mobile office concept that allows them to blend their personal and professional pursuits.

The new trailer will visit eight cities on CCAD's fall admissions tour of high schools and colleges throughout the Midwest, kicking off in Pittsburgh Sept. 25 and concluding in Washington, DC Nov. 24. Other major stops on the tour include Chicago, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Detroit and Louisville.

120 students and 17 faculty worked together to develop the full-scale prototype with the primary goal of helping Airstream, whose current customer base averages 60 years old, reach a younger audience. The project, a part of Airstream's Live Riveted Campaign, was a 16-week undertaking during spring semester 2014. The newly designed trailer made its debut at the Industrial Designers Society of America's International Conference last month in Austin. Airstream is evaluating the students' work for possible inclusion in future products.

"As discipline-specific lines blur, this experience is invaluable to our students," said Thomas White, president, CCAD. "Working in cross-functional teams enabled the students to achieve a level of insight that resulted in a product seen as highly differentiated in a competitive marketplace. The scale of the project is extremely unique."

"Airstream chose CCAD to create a new product concept because we value the perspective of millennials, who are our future customers," said Bob Wheeler, president and chief executive officer of Airstream. "Having a leading art and design college just an hour away from our facility allowed us to bring students to the factory throughout the process so they understood the manufacturing implications of their design choices."

Students from all nine of the college's majors contributed to the project:

• Industrial and Interior Design majors created the interior concepts and fabricated the trailer prototype
• Advertising & Graphic Design majors and Illustration students collaborated on the ad campaign for the product and created assets to use in social media
• Animation students created animated shorts with Airstream founder Wally Byum as the central character
• Cinematic Arts students created a documentary of the project, while Photography students documented the project and supported the promotional campaigns
• Fashion Design majors developed a line of Airstream branded sportswear for the target buyers
• Fine Arts students created many of the interior decor elements

To learn more about the Airstream project, visit http://ccad-on-the-road.tumblr.com/.

About CCAD

Columbus College of Art & Design, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest private art and design colleges in the United States with 1,300 undergraduate and graduate students. CCAD offers bachelor's and master's degrees in Fine Arts. Undergraduate students choose from nine majors: photography, industrial design, advertising and graphic design, animation, illustration, fine arts, fashion design, interior design and cinematic arts. For more information, visit http://www.ccad.edu.

Contact:
Michelle Garrett
614-315-4037
[email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140924/148137

SOURCE Columbus College of Art & Design