The class drew lots and I was paired up with Carissa. I ave worked with her and I'm sure we will be a great team and it is not impossible to achieve A for this CA. After going through the brief, we went to paired with another pair(they will be the client) So we paired up with Shane and Kirthana. After looking at their previous CA piece, they decided to get us working on shane's mascot and logo. We had to create a website and mobile site for them. And we have to do creative brief based on what they wants. 

Till then 

-Fidah-

Every Polytechnic open house has their own unique and personalized theme that they use to help intrigue and attract secondary school and potential students into enrolling into their school. The themes are usually original and catchy, often leaving a strong impression on the students.

For the two polytechnics, Singapore Polytechnic and Republic Polytechnic, they both have very different approaches and themes. For example, Singapore Poly’s theme for this year’s open house is SP+U where they has installations scattered around the school (eg. STORIES+U, CURIOSITY+U). On the other hand, Republic Polytechnic’s theme is iDiscover. The booths in the open house are strategically placed and organised in such a way that the students are able to literally ‘discover’ every course and the displays to it’s full potential. They set up live demonstrations, showcase their equipment and have hands-on, interactive displays that help them ‘discover’ exactly what the course is about.

The main visuals of SP are the SP+U installations, where they put up huge displays of different aspects of different courses – what they can achieve from joining SP (eg. CURIOSITY+U, where curiosity is an aspect of the engineering courses). As for RP, there were three main visuals which were most appealing. There were ornaments hanging from the ceiling, a wall, where the students can leave their mark in the school by leaving their handprint there. It is very visually attractive and interesting, and it catches your eye even from a distance away. Lastly, the interactive displays, where they set up booths and showcase their course with the help of IT and technology. For example the biomedical courses set up actual hospital beds and live demonstrations where they tend to the patients and show the students what they do and learn in their course, rather than explaining with just words.

The three visual communication applications that we have chosen are web, brochure and even site graphics. In comparison of SP and RP websites, SP has a more appealing website. Reason being, it was much more colourful, visually impactful and had more pictures and graphics. It is also much more user friendly for the web visitors to roll over to the specific images to find out more information on the desired topic rather than scrolling down all the way to find the specific information they need. RP’s website rather very wordy, accompanied with their signature white and green theme.
As for the brochures, both schools provided all the information of courses needed, however SP has better presentation because of the dynamic pictures and colours used, and also SP focuses a lot more on typography which helps the readers find information much more efficiently.

Lastly, for event site graphics, RP was still more visually appealing. As much as SP was visually appealing, the installations and signage were more disorganized and seemed all over the place compared to RP’s.
The visuals of the SP+U displays left quite a deep impression on us because it was basically everywhere to emphasize on the idea that if the students were to join SP, they would be warmly welcomed, because SP is all about the school and you. For RP, two visuals left a deep impression on us. One of the two visuals was the Diploma in Restaurant & Culinary Operations booth, where the lecturers and volunteers were dressed according to the theme. It was quite a nice and refreshing sight to see them dressed in professional attire eg. chefs, waiters, receptionist, etc. rather than the usual school t-shirts that they always wear. Secondly, the Electrical and Electronic Engineering booth where they had paper cuts with designed clothes attached to one side and a QR code on the other. The students were able to scan the QR codes by standing in front of the TV resulting in them ‘wearing’ their chosen clothes. It was a definitely an interesting and mind-blowing experience for the students as they have never encountered something like that before.
Between the two poly open house visuals, we think that RP was more successful because of the appealing and interesting visuals. There is a greater usage of course facilities and displays. The visuals actually did portray the theme ‘iDiscover’, where you really see and discover what the course are all about, Only one bad point about RP is that their course brochure are printed in black and white, which is plain and not as impactful as compared to SP’s. RP was also much more organized and effective in placing their booths strategically and directing the students through the whole open house.

Marketing is very important, so are visuals. As much as visuals have to be attractive and appealing, they have to be organized too, or too many visuals jumbled up together will be too messy and disorganized. Visuals cannot be scattered nor should it be placed very close to each other. Marketing wise, RP has sponsors and products that attract the target audience (teenagers), such as Teenage magazine, Vans vouchers, skincare products. SP has sponsors too, however, their marketing scheme did not reach out to the target audience of teenagers, but more to parents.

After the break, we started on Dreamweaver. A software that is use to make a website. Some sort like that I think. It was more of creating a webpage? But then this will not be use for our current CA. It might be use for future CA. 

After we were told to get into pairs and work on a cover and magazine spread. 

cover page

-Fidah-