Student Union holds second competition for student card design

By Gracia Lee

TOP: The three shortlisted entries from the NTU Card Design Contest, with “Everything at NTU” (top left) winning based on student votes.
BOTTOM: Some of the submissions uploaded onto the “Revival Blessings” Facebook album, with a blue, red and white entry (bottom right) highly praised in the comments. PHOTOS: FACEBOOK

The mechanics were simple: vote for a winner, and every student will receive a new matriculation card based on the winning design.

But a second competition is now being held for the new NTU student matriculation card, after the three designs originally shortlisted under the NTU Student Card Design Contest held earlier in September were panned by students and alumni.

This second search, called the Union Prize Contest, is organised by the NTU Students’ Union (NTUSU) and will allow students to pick one more design from a pool of 50 re-shortlisted entries from the first contest.

Voting via studentlink began on 21 Nov and will close on 4 Dec.

This second competition was launched after NTUSU’s discussions with the University, said its vice president Yosua Nathanael Santoso, who is in charge of the Union Prize Contest.

The NTUSU chose new design criteria and picked a panel of student leaders  representing various schools in NTU  to shortlist the 50 designs.

This format “will allow students’ views, both undergraduates and graduates, to be considered sufficiently”, Santoso added.

While the University offered $2,000, $1,000 and $500 for the first competition’s top three winners, the NTUSU is sponsoring the prizes for the second competition, comprising $500 for the winner and vouchers for voters in a lucky draw.

In all, two winning entries – one from each contest – will be integrated into two new card designs, the University said in a Facebook post. When making their new matriculation card next year, students can choose one of the two designs.

‘Ugly’ options

Pictures of the three shortlisted designs from the first competition drew flak when they were uploaded on the NTU Facebook page for voting on 31 Oct.

The university-wide competition attracted more than 500 entries, and three winners were picked by a panel of representatives from the student body and faculty.

However, there were “substantially more” staff than student judges, Santoso said.

The winning entries are a crystal-inspired design, a Mondrian-inspired design, and an illustrative doodle of University landmarks such as The Hive and the Chinese Heritage Centre.

The third design, titled “Everything at NTU”, won the contest by garnering more than 1,000 likes.

But it was slammed as “terrible” and “ugly”, with the Facebook post receiving over 90 comments from students and alumni.

“The student card is a part of NTU’s identity,” said first-year School of Biological Sciences (SBS) student Shamirah A’Azman, 20.

She added: “When I show my (student) card to get discounts, I want to be proud to associate myself with the school. How will others think of us if our student cards are so poorly designed?”

Jefferson Koh, 23, said the shortlisted designs were equal to a “public image blunder” for the school, especially since the designs and students’ reactions to them had been picked up and published into articles on websites like Mothership and SGAG.

“We have become the subject of mockery for many people outside of NTU,” the third-year School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering student added.

Better designs

Online, many students also expressed surprise at the “poor quality” of the shortlisted designs despite the number of submissions.

Some felt the winning entries lacked basic design techniques, while one shortlisted design even violated the competition rule that the NTU logo should be placed against a white background.

“Poor design reflects badly on the university, especially when we have an art school here,” said final-year School of Art, Design and Media (ADM) student Rachel Tan, 23.

She added that though two of the shortlisted designs were done by ADM students, it did not mean their designs were above criticism.

Shortly after the results were announced, an album of entries that did not make the cut was compiled on a Facebook page named “Revival Blessings”.

Students who took part in the first contest were encouraged to submit their entries to the public album, owned by an ADM student who declined to be named.

“Most of us who saw the shortlisted designs knew that that wasn’t the best NTU could do,” she told the Nanyang Chronicle. “This album provides more transparency for us to see our options.”

A total of 59 submissions have been uploaded as of 24 Nov. One of the most popular designs is a red, blue and white one that received praise for being “professional-looking”, “clean” and “classy”.

After viewing the album, many students called for the judging criteria of the contest to be revealed.

“There were better designs that were submitted. The school should explain why the (final) three designs were chosen over others, when it seems like they were randomly picked out of a bowl,” said final-year School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering student Nicholas Wee, 24.

Another Facebook page, named “NTU design card competition: what could have been”, was also created, featuring parody submissions such as a picture of Harambe the gorilla and a design of the National University of Singapore student card with the NTU logo photoshopped over it.
The page has since been deleted.

More choices

After receiving news of the second contest, students said they were pleased to get a greater say in the card’s final design.

“It’s fairer now that we have a larger pool of submissions to choose from,” said Nicholas Chin, 23, a third-year SBS student.

Added third-year Electrical and Electronic Engineering student Damian Goh, 24: “Students now have more say in deciding which design wins, which is important since we are the ones who will be carrying around the cards.”

But others felt the design should have been left to professionals from the beginning, instead of relying on student submissions.

A vendor should have been hired to design something so important to the NTU identity, instead of “degrading it to an amateur, crowdsourced competition”, said third-year Asian School for the Environment student Simone Low, 22.

She added that the winning designs made it seem like the university did not want to spend money to hire a professional, and sent the message that it did not want to support its ADM alumni.