school of media arts and design

“Creativity is intelligence having fun!” – Albert Einstein

Our students from the School of Media, Arts and Design (SOMAD) recently participated in a design hackathon challenge by Maybank Malaysia, and recorded awesome results. 

The hackathon focused on designing the bank’s future self-service terminals, in which participants undertook a design challenge to come up with creative ideas on how a self-service terminal should look like in the future. Entries were submitted to Maybank as  Maybank notified shortlisted participants a few days later to attend a briefing at their innovation centre. 

Our students from the  Multimedia Technology, Animation, Advertising & Brand Management, Product Design & Transport Design programmes, Winnie Tan Jia Jie, Ainur Bagitova, Waad Sayed Hameed Saeed Jaafar Alawi Shehab and Team Creatifixion (Clara, Safira, Timothy and Vinny qualified into the Individual and Group Categories respectively. They were invited to Maybank Tower for the final pitch session, in which they presented their idea followed by a comprehensive Q&A session by the panel of judges. 

Waad, our student of the BA (Hons) in Animation programme achieved 2nd Runner Up at the final pitch and walked away with a cash prize of RM1000. His excellent performance was a result of dedication and effort by the mentors, Mr. Teay Siew Yen, Mr. Saiful, Ms. Christine, Mr. Harsha Rao, and Ms. Rizawati who have assisted, guided as well as supported them to success. Kudos to SOMAD and the students! We look forward to seeing more creative juices flowing among them in the future.

The next time we look at Smart Selangor’s logo, we will feel a sense of pride, as the hands behind the design of Smart Selangor’s official logo now belong to Winnie Tan Jia Ci, our Year 3 student of the BSc (Hons) in Multimedia Technology programme.

Winnie participated in the Smart Selangor Design Hack, a logo design competition organized by the Selangor government last month, which saw participation from 22 Multimedia and Design students who came from local and private universities nationwide. 

Smart Selangor is an organization initiated by the Selangor State Government that aims to transform the state into a Premier Smart State in ASEAN by 2025, through the implementation of effective technology infrastructure to improve the quality of life of Selangor folk.

Winnie worked with all participants for 24-hours non-stop, together with the Smart Selangor Delivery Unit, the corporate communication team of Menteri Besar Selangor Incorporated and their branding team, Brand Geeks Incorporated. In total, 22 logos were produced, of which, the best 3 were selected and presented to Y.A.B. Dato’ Menteri Besar Selangor, Y.A.B. Dato’ Seri Mohamed Azmin bin Ali. Apart from Winnie, Ainur Bagitova, also from the BSc (Hons) in Multimedia Technology programme, was also selected as one of the finalists.

At her presentation, Winnie described her logo’s concept, which is based on “Synergy & Connection”, in which she incorporated design elements that represent both the Rakyat and the State, working hand-in-hand in a dynamic, fluid and organic matter. This is supported by the fusion of technology as the enabler to drive and deliver a people-centric Smart Selangor.

The logo was unveiled at the Selangor International Expo 2017 earlier this month. Winnie’s logo design was selected as the official logo of Smart Selangor, and she walked away with a cash prize of RM3,000 and a Certificate of Achievement, presented by the Chief Executive Officer of Invest Selangor, Dato’ Hasan Azhari Idris and Project Manager of Smart Selangor Delivery Unit, Mazlan Mahadi.

We are proud to share that 3 of our students, Ainur Bagitova, Wong Chun Yew (BSC (Hons) in Multimedia Technology) and Clara Angelina (BA (Hons) in Advertising & Brand Management) were selected among 600 entries to be part of the top 30 finalists of the ACA World Championship Malaysia 2017 Grand Finale, a global competition that tests students’ design skills using Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. This competition was open to all institutions of higher learning, secondary schools, colleges and polytechnics, in which students whose major is in Art & Design were given a platform to showcase their work on a wider scale.

Our students worked on a poster under the theme, “Our Reefs Our Future”, in which the concept was developed to help Reef Check Malaysia, a NGO that is concerned about the coral reefs in Malaysia. Under the supervision of Mr. Leo Gertrude David and Ms. Debbie Liew, the students produced attractive posters in 1 months’ time, as shown below. 

Clara Angelina