Another Saturday Morning at Segi College - 21 February 2009

This is the 3rd time I'm helping my colleague, Daniel, assess the work of his Visual Communications students' work. Over the past 2 sessions, there were some students' work that wowed us and some that just made us go, "uh-huh...". This session, I'd been told, would consist of brands such as Coke, La Senza, Forever 21, The Body Shop, Malaysian Kennel Association and Starbucks presented by an all-female class. Big brands.. ambitious.. interesting - definitely looked forward to seeing their work.

I'd nearly not made this session as I had to work (a day trip to Langkawi) but the trip was rescheduled to Sunday (the next day as it was a work day in Langkawi). The other 2 assessors were Ash and Roslan (from Segi's Graphics Art course). And, as usual, Daniel was as kind as ever to throw in breakfast and lunch. Ash came to pick me up at about 9am and we made it in good time to have breakfast before our session at 10am.

Daniel & Ash at breakfast..

The session started promptly at 10am beacuse we were on a somewhat tight schedule as Ash had to leave by about 1.30pm

Ash checking out... the girls!

The Body Shop Baby Range - the "baby" icon I found disturbing!

I've included the above pix not becuse I thought it was great but simply because it was the only presentation that featured products. The rest mainly consisted of a series of collaterals. Sadly for the girls, we knew most of the brands well (I was one up on the boys with La Senza, of course, and MKA) and most of us knew very little about Forever 21. Despite Daniel telling us numerous times to look at and assess mainly on the visual communication, it was hard to ignore that more often then not, the concept and/or "big idea" was just not spot on, thus, making the visual communication wrong. This time around, there was nothing that really wowed. There was only one which made for a believable campaign and the rest were pretty immature, one even incomplete! There was one that had great artwork - if she bacame an art director or designer, working with a copywriter and a possibly a strategic planner, she could do well.

Ash busy filling out his asessment form before dashing off.. Me blending into the walls with my favourite yellow t-shirt.

Ash had run late and dashed off and I had a lunch appointment. So, Daniel didn't have to babysit us for lunch. We had given the girls lots of constructive comments and suggestions, which we can only hope thagt they will remember and put to good use.