WITH the shifting to a new academic calendar starting August and the entry of the first graduates of senior high school to tertiary education, the coming school year will be an exciting one for many universities. For the University of San Carlos School of Architecture, Fine Arts and Design (USC Safad), its annual design awards and exhibit, held recently at Ayala Center Cebu, aims the spotlight on the new road ahead, gearing up for a fresh curriculum.
This eager anticipation is evident when USC Safad adopted the theme “Luminance” for its end-of-the-school-year event, which is now on its 20th year. USC Safad Dean Joseph Michael Espina, FUAP, emphasized the importance of luminance in giving the school a clearer view of the academic shift, especially for those who would soon be stamping their professional marks in the field of design.
Senior high school students who are scheduled to graduate in the coming weeks had a glimpse of what is ahead of them if they chose to tread the road for a career in a design profession. The outstanding works of the students from the architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, advertising arts, fashion design, painting arts and cinema studies were all radiant, molded by the young, creative minds and hands of the school.
Bright Plans for Metro Cebu.
The architecture students had a very dynamic display of presentation drawings, both done by hand and through design softwares, as well as scaled models. Development proposals for different areas around Metro Cebu, such as Lorega in Cebu City and the Butuanon River area in Mandaue City, gave visitors a glimpse of how cities and towns could be improved through well-studied design and planning.
Another creative installation displayed showed a speculative redevelopment of Colon St. in the year 2050, which will be showcased in the Philippine Pavilion during the Venice Architecture Biennale this May. The USC Department of Architecture is one of only four schools in the Philippines invited to showcase its works in the so-called “Olympics of architecture.”
Ads Savvy.
The advertising arts program had one of the most interactive displays. Lighting up the booth was also the display of this year’s best thesis awardees. One team of advertising students, which is among the awardees this year, created an integrated marketing communications campaign for a healthy food delivery business based in Cebu. “We focused our execution through various media that would result in word of mouth advertising. These are through traditional media like posters and flyers, social media interactions and public relations through events,” explains advertising student Rafael James Del Castillo about the thesis that he did with classmates Blanche Alys Sypaco and Trisha Allona Son.
The group’s thesis along with those from the other programs of USC Safad was showcased again in the school’s first-ever degree show just a few days later.
After tedious episodes of working on their school projects (yes, numerous sleepless nights included), the students of USC Safad who excelled during the past school year turned luminaries, at least in those three days of the design exhibit. They received their well-deserved recognition, not just for their creative talents, but also on how they enlightened Cebuanos on the possibilities and benefits of good design to a community.