WHILE BEING interviewed by an award-winning creative director, this young man who said he wanted to make a good career in advertising, was told: “You are so good, your teachers and school must be very good, too.” He replied: “Thank you, sir, but with all humility and respect to them, I developed my own style. I enrolled only at the university for the degree.”

Then came another girl. When asked if she’s familiar with Adobe Illustration, Photoshop, InDesign and other Mac-based applications, including printing terms such as RGB and CMYK, she answered: “In school, we have to book days in advance to be able to use a PC. I have to apprentice at a printing shop to know the basics.”

At conservative estimate, hundreds of visual/mass communications, fine arts and multi-media students graduate from our universities every year.

A number of them are inherently gifted and get job offers on a silver platter. The rest either apply for admissions to ad agencies with university programs in advertising. The rest knock on other ad agencies’ doors, digital, graphic design and production houses’ to hone their skills.

Some of them eventually become the backbone of our advertising business. A record number of them are scattered all over the world, working for global ad agency networks—hunted by employers who are always on the lookout for world-renowned Pinoy talents.

While Pinoy-talent is a gold mine, sadly our schools and universities offering communication arts are wanting or even bereft of up-to-date equipment and facilities. What has the government done for them?

Other countries

Indonesia, whom some of us may think has an ad industry that is behind that of the Philippines, has a modern advertising school called Imago which produces and replenishes the country’s talent gene pool. Its facilities are mind-blowing.

Mass communication is a growing career in Malaysia and advertising is a multi-billion ringgit business (3 ringgit to 1 US dollar) industry with a stable annual growth. As such, the government provides support to schools and universities offering courses that boost this industry and its affiliates.

Most famous of this is LimKokWing University of Creative Technology whose founder and president Lim Kok Wing, is CEO of the Year by Brand Laureate this year and was awarded Asean’s most innovative corporate leader.

LKW University has a global presence across three continents with over 30,000 students coming from more than 150 countries studying in the following campuses: Bali, Borneo, Botswana, Cambodia, Lesotho and United Kingdom.

Singapore has become a regional creative hub with a number of schools offering wide courses in advertising, new media, interactive visual arts, graphics design, filmmaking and communications.

Lecturers come straight from the Royal College of Art, Birmingham Institute of Arts and Design, Pratt Institute New York among others. Sotheby is even there.

Singapore’s School of Art, Design and Media by structure alone, is jaw dropping. The building is a five-story piece of award-winning architecture with a spectacular grass-turfed roof, making you ask: Is it a building or a landscape?

Unknown to most of us, Filipino director, Carlitos Siguion-Reyna teaches film directing and screenwriting at the Graduate Film Department of New York University Tisch Asia School of the Arts, Singapore—a three-year-old branch of NYU Tisch School of the Arts from where he received his MFA.

NYU Tisch Asia’s film department has the same curriculum, course syllabi, facilities, admissions standards, and academic/artistic standards as the one in New York. Its students have produced works that have been screened and awarded in major filmfests such as Tribeca, Clermont-Ferrand Short Film, Palm Springs, Slam Dance and Pusan International Film Festivals.

Ad schools

If building facades in the Philippines could speak, this one says it all. De La Salle’s College of St. Benilde School of Design and Arts takes us a quantum leap from present standards. The most ambitious undertaking by DLSU, “it is envisioned to be a home for new generation of Filipino artists and designers armed with the best in technical expertise and global competence,” according to its website.

Ateneo de Manila University, University of Asia Pacific, and University of Santo Tomas are just some of the big Philippine universities providing us fresh talents. But how can these private enclaves better equip their students to be competitive when they step out of their campuses?

University of the Philippines has produced some of the country’s best creative directors, art directors and copywriters, including TV commercial directors. Sadly, it is now lagging behind on many counts.

For one, the building is a run-down, hand-me-down, uninspiring former building of another college. While the college has a steady stream of donors, it needs to modernize its visual communication facilities. Younger, more dynamic and real industry practitioners should beef up its faculty.

How is the government helping the country’s premier university whose College of Fine Arts and Mass Communications have produced an illustrious list of men and women in media and advertising? Is this even on the list of the new President whose campaign was helped by, what else … media and advertising?

By Roger Pe
Philippine Daily Inquirer

The article is published with a permission from the writer. First posted on 05/06/2010