Osaka Communication Arts College held its twenty-sixth graduation and year-end project exhibition ‘We Are OCA’ at the Osaka Merchandise Market on Friday, February 6 and Saturday, February 7. The theme for this year’s exhibition was “A Great Banquet of Creators.”

 

The 2015 ‘We Are OCA’ exhibition featured student projects from many well-known companies in fields such as gaming, computer graphics, manga, anime, graphic design, illustration, and interior design. Corporate projects play a central role in OCA’s cooperative education with industry system and give students an opportunity to create marketable products under the careful guidance of industry’s leading companies. Some of the outstanding projects on display at this year’s exhibition have made their way into the marketplace as actual products.

 

Graphic design major students delivered six presentations in the presentation square set up in the center of the exhibition hall on the afternoon of February 6, the first day of the exhibition. The presentations were used to decide the Incentive Awards for the Canon EOS Kiss X7 digital single-lens reflex camera promotional project with Canon Marketing Japan Inc.

 

Students unveiled various advertisements which were created after doing research and conducting surveys to sound out what users want in a camera. These advertisements, such as mid-aisle hanging advertisements, each target a different user, such as “camera mothers” taking pictures of their children, “female office workers” wanting to preserve memories, “camera girls” who love sports, and “parents” supporting the extra-curricular activities of their children.

 

Ms. Sumiyo Akieda, Ad Planning Team Chief, and faculty judges made brief comments about the presentation such as “I thought the delivery of the presentation was like that of an advertising agency” and “It was wonderful how they expressed things with the subtle tastes of youthful sensibilities.” The exhibition hall erupted in applause at the end of the presentation.

 

Students also gave presentations on projects nominated for Jikei Education Science Center (JESC) Incentive Awards, which are shortlisted for the top prize within the school. These presentations included a corporate project received from Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co.,Ltd. entitled “Soylution,” the goal of which was to popularize soybean products. This was a five-person team project headed by Reina Shimizu, a third-year student in the Creative Design Department. Another project was the “Okazaki Tokiakari 2014” projection mapping contest sponsored by Kyoto Okazaki Miryoku Tsukuri Suishin Kyougikai (Kyoto Okazaki Tourism Association). Eighteen teams from art universities and colleges in the Kansai area took part in the contest, but Chinatsu Ogasawara, third-year student from the Creative Design Department, and Sachiko Yamada, third-year student from the Digital Creative Department, secured both the Incentive Award and the Flat Agency Award for their project entitled “Mirai.”

 

Students also gave presentations on three proposals for the “Decorative Items Shop and ‘Real-World’ Practical Training” project, which included a six-member team led by Ryoko Yamaguchi, third-year student in the Creative Design Department. Participants operated their own hand-made decorative accessories shop, planning by themselves everything from products and sales to product displays. The students also opened an actual decorative accessories shop in the exhibition hall. Proceeds from the shop were donated to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature.

 

This year’s event also welcomed editors from twenty-five manga magazines in Tokyo, such as Weekly Shonen Jump and the Weekly Shonen Jump Magazine, who came to view students’ artwork. The editors opened a ‘Manga Editing Department Branch Office’ in a specially prepared booth in the exhibition hall to scout out future prospects. This kind of ‘manga audition,’ where students can meet with this many editors in the same place, is exclusive to OCA, so students with their sights set on achieving their professional debut lined up in front of the editors of the magazines of their choice on both days. Some students were given an editor’s business card and asked to “get in touch later.” This kind of experience gives students a renewed sense of determination to become a professional manga artist as well as a keen desire to take advantage of the opportunity.

 

This year marks the twenty-sixth year since OCA began holding the annual ‘We Are TCA’ student exhibition, and the quality of the projects on display at this year’s event is a clear indication of the success of the cooperative education with industry program at the school. With students delivering ever more innovative and creative solutions to the design challenges from our industry partners, we anticipate an even greater showing of talent, determination, and hard work from our students at next year’s exhibition.