HKG Muchuu Design Pitch Follow-up

Well, we were absolutely blown away by the enthusiasm and quality of the work pitched this morning by Visual Communications students in Hong Kong, and we can't wait to share it with the band. I'll be inviting Milky & Gman to join us here, so please leave links in the comments and upload your images to the VCI Flickr group. Again, well done on the first part, let's see what work we can progress further with Muchuu's input.

Wednesday Micro Lectures

Tomorrow morning, beginning at 11:00AM prompt, we're trying something new. Lectures are often long, drawn-out affairs where students go to sleep in the middle and wake up as the lecturer asks "Any questions?".

Micro Lectures are different: We have five different topics, and each one should take no longer than 15-20 minutes. Once one has finished, we'll move swiftly on to the next, and at the end of the session all the presenters will take any questions that you have. You're welcome to attend all five, or stay for the ones you want (we encourage you to stay for all five of course!).

Our topics for tomorrow are: Presentation-Fu! (Robert Sharl); What Is Research? (Balvir Nandra); Online Promotion (BCU Alumni Balvir Nandra); Digital Utopia - Photographs from HK to UK (Graphics Alumni Kwan Chun In); Visualising Information (Robert Sharl).

Muchuu Live Project HKG

The Muchuu project is now underway, and we're excited to see your early ideas. If anyone needs a high quality copy of music tracks for use in their pitch please ask me directly on Monday or Tuesday. Here's the run-down for the rest of the project:

Monday AM: In your assigned groups at Sha Tin and Kwun Tong, presenting initial ideas for feedback.
Monday PM: Working on your ideas, further development, in your groups (attendance not compulsory).

Tuesday AM: Balvir and Robert available for detailed production advice or feedback at Sha Tin. Do you need advice on type, graphics, music industry, web or online? Book a time, or turn up and wait your turn!
Tuesday PM: Production time in your groups.

Wednesday AM: (Sha Tin) Micro-lectures (see posting to follow)
Wednesday PM: (Sha Tin) Group Work on Visuals and Pitches (help available)

Thursday AM: (Sha Tin) Final Presentations

Please post your ongoing ideas and progress to the Flickr group. The band will be taking a look there, so tag your posts "muchuu".

HKG student workchecks this week

This week Balvir Nandra and I will be conducting workchecks for the Major Project. As you should have been instructed by your local staff these are not formal presentations and run in small groups. Please check for your time slot and make sure that you attend the whole session (6 students each session). You will be commenting on each other's work, and will have approximately ten minutes to summarize your own progress and plans.

Please note that there will not be a formal presentation during this teaching visit, but you should have the opportunity to pre-present to local staff. You should also post updated work to Flickr, where BCU staff will have an opportunity to offer additional feedback.

[ Sent from my iPhone]

Fontastic! L6 Typographic Exhibition, Birmingham, UK

Students from the l6 SIG in Graphic Communication, presented an interesting exhibition presenting their typographic design. The exhibition showcased a series of Typographic posters communicating the students career goal to their prospective industry employers.

Complementing the Type and poster design was a collection of Direct Response media. Through the development of a piece of Introductory media the students produced objects, including their type design, to introduce themselves and their skills to targeted industry professionals in their area of practice.

Images of the exhibition can be seen on the Flickr pool.

Book Jacket Design Competition Brief

The Penguin Design Award competition brief is now open, with a closing date of Friday 17th April 2009. We're strongly encouraging entry from students across the Visual Communication course, and this would be a great opportunity to try out a real brief in the publishing industry. 

Remember, you can submit work done for competition briefs in support of your Major Project as part of a body of work.

Birmingham-Thailand Exchange Students Exhibition

The students from UK who visited Thailand last semester have been slowly constructing an exhibition based on their fantastic experiences there, and tonight they'll be saying "lao jer gun" to Bangkok with a special gathering here in Birmingham. For those of you who can't join us, we've uploaded photos of the show to the Visual Communication International Flickr Pool. Remember, this group is open to all of you, wherever you study, so please add your own work. The bonus is that you build your own Flickr portfolio at the same time, and we encourage staff and students to offer constructive critical feedback on the work in the group!

Visual Communication Uk Exhibition Blog

If you are interested in seeing how the UK students are developing the Identity and Branding for their summer shows, join in the discussions through their 2009 blog.

Some useful Links to support the Competition Briefs

Rewind: 40 years of Design and Advertising, Jeremy Myerson & Graham Vickers. Phiadon Press Ltd, 2002.

D&AD, website.

D&AD Getty Images Bloodbank, website.

Young Creative Network Competition Briefs

Ad Asia Online, website for Adasia Magazine.

Adforum online resource for all the major international design and advertising competitions.

The Guardian News Paper, Media Guardian, The Creative Lounge.


Computer Arts, Top 10 International Design Competitions.

Creative Review, Readers Blog.

Hong Kong IVE/SHAPE/BCU Major Project SIG's

Today we worked through a series of exercises aimed at focusing our rationale, filtering our interests, to define our Special Interest Groups on our individual area of practice. The SIG's were then set a short task to develop an Identity/Brand concept to represent their area of practice.

The SIG from class A have defined themselves as follows (Visual work to follow on Flickr):

Branding - "promise"

Nel, On, Po, Alvin

Advertising - "Ad-tive"

Angus, Toshi, Phoenix, Judith

Information - "INvite"

Mandy, Kathy, Fok, Jade, Dino

Typography - "Accurate"

Cherry, Wayne, Zoie, Die

Visual Communication - "SHIFT+"

Maggie, Max, Number (Lam), Pat, Ruby

Specialist Interest Group's B

Information x "ZiP"

Toto, Serena, Tad, Chloe, Alice (Ethical Design?)

Advertising and Branding x "ABout"
Miko, Shiny, Derek, Moe, Enos, Addy

Illustration x "ill"
Saku, Esther, Gigi

Editorial/Publishing/Typography x "In8"
Bee, Mizuki, Lok

Preparation For D Osbaldestin and R Gibb's Teaching Visit

Firstly, hello to everybody studying with BCU and Happy Chinese New Year!

We are very excited about our teaching visit and are looking forward to working with you and your tutors on your Major Negotiated Project module.

In preparation of our visit, we require all students to post a visual representation of your last Negotiated Study Project work online, for review and possible selection for a Portfolio based exhibition later in the week.

N.B. This request is mandatory for all students.

Please upload your work to Flickr, making sure that you label it and post it to the Viscominternational group.

The deadline to post your work to Flickr is Sunday the 8th of February.  We will be compiling a shortlist from these online submissions (by BCU and Shape staff) for a one day portfolio exhibition as part of the core teaching and learning methodologies for this teaching visit.

Best regards,

David Osbaldestin and Rob Gibb