In the academic year 2020-2021, students of the Graphic Design Department - Faculty of Design and Art, Hoa Sen University, with their progressive, determined and earnest work attitude, brought about many creative ideas and original color. 

Practicality shown among the graduation projects

On Jan 15^th, 2021, the Thesis defense session of Department of Graphic Design - Faculty of Design and Art included 13 eligible students with 9 topics, namely: Illustration, Brand guidelines design, 3D Stop-motion movie about marine environment protection, packaging design for communication, etc.

This semester’s special feature lies in the fact that students carried out their projects on the basis of practicality, typically the brand guidelines design for HCMC Metro. The project was based on a survey conducted around HCMC area to create a brand value for HCMC Metro, through which the citizens can see a brand new face of the city’s upcoming metro system. This was also the highest-scoring graduation project of the semester with a score of 9.6.

To intrigue players and stimulate their thinking ability, Pham Thi Thu Hien and Vuong Khanh Linh conducted a project titled “Illustrated boardgame - Khám phá rừng Nam Cát Tiên" (Explore Nam Cat Tien National Park) which depicted complex ideas and a harmony of colours.

In the same field, the “Cá sấu lên bờ” boardgame design project by Tran Thi Khanh Ngoc, which integrated a childhood game with a modern playstyle, showed her devotion, vision, self-improvement and creativity. Seeing the designer’s detail-oriented work attitude in every segment of the game, the committee gave 9.0 to the project.

In general, this semester witnessed many intriguing new ideas, especially on packaging design projects. Take, for example, the project on brand guidelines design for “GÓI” (Packaging) made by Luong Ngoc Minh Thu. The interesting message of the project was that a healthy breakfast would help people re-energize and strengthen themselves. Through which, she also wanted to contribute to the expansion of graphic applications in many aspects of life and society.

With her packaging design project for 2021 TẾT, Dam Nguyen My Dung brought about the atmosphere of the upcoming Vietnamese Tết holiday. Themed “Mùa gặt” (Harvest season), her project truly depicted a combination of the conventional and the contemporary to wish for a new year with health and prosperity.

Applying graphic technology in short movie-making

Abuse in any way, even verbal, is an immoral and depraved act of an individual to insult or inflict damage on others, which should be dealt with completely by any means. To deliver such a message, the two students - Ngo Gia Khanh and Tran Trung Nghia - had to go great lengths to carry out their graduation project titled “Detainment” - a short movie about verbal abuse.

The project adopted AR technology to bring about an exotic experience for users, which is praised by the committee for its good quality; still, the cast did not follow the storyline well and the acting posed many flaws. Regardless, the two showed their dedication and creativity when combining illustration and AR graphics in the short movie, which remarkably scored 9.3.

With their project themed "3D Stop-motion”, Quoc Binh and Duc Linh cleverly integrated 3D technology with Stop-motion technique to breathe life into the animated characters of the movie "Calling for Marine Environment Protection" under the instruction of Mr. Vo Anh Tuan (MA). The duo challenged themselves with a completely new approach which brought countless obstacles, so much so that they were sometimes overwhelmed by the workload. Be that as it may, the group managed to fulfill the project with all their hearts and received a score of 8.5 from the committee.

Although the defense shows a distinction in quality between the graduation projects, this only goes to reflect students’ true capability through their enthusiasm, work coordination and team spirit; each and every student of the individual category has also made every effort in carrying out their works. As stated by the Committee: “all students show high applicability in their graduation projects and they can totally turn these into real products or introduce them to businesses for mass production.”

Translated by Minh Nhat from the Vietnamese version of Le Thi Hanh - Thieu Anh