Six students. Six different disciplines. Three days. That's the premise of Chat — a fully realised homeless awareness charity for Croydon, built from scratch by a cross-discipline team of graphic designers, fine artists, and filmmakers. We named it CHAT: Croydon Homeless Awareness Team.
I came in as researcher, animator, and presentation designer. My research dug into homelessness statistics across Croydon's wards: who is affected, how rough sleeping impacts health, and what the borough's numbers actually look like when you strip away the abstraction. From that research, I moved into primary work, going into college to interview students with one question: "What is home to you?" Their answers became the spine of an animation I built in After Effects from the second half of day one.
There was no room for anything overworked. The work had to be direct, emotionally clear, and finished in time. My animation put homelessness into human terms: what home means to the people who have it, and what its absence feels like for those who don't. My teammate Zoe made a parallel animation covering the factual impact of rough sleeping across the UK. Together, they became the emotional and informational backbone of our final presentation to university students.
Working in a team across disciplines changed something for me. There was no hiding behind someone else's output. Everyone's piece mattered and everyone knew it. That accountability sharpened my focus and pushed me harder than I would have pushed myself alone.