Some 140 students from 15 secondary schools took part in Nanyang Polytechnic’s (NYP) special Singapore 2010 Logo Design Workshop on Wednesday, 13 August 2008. Organised by NYP’s School of Design, the workshop is part of NYPs’ continuous support for Singapore’s first Youth Olympic Games in 2010.

Six lecturers and 40 students from NYP’s School of Design helped participants create their own YOG logo designs. They shared with the secondary school students, the fundamentals of logo design and how to apply them to the YOG and the Olympic values.

“We were impressed with the creativity and enthusiasm of the students. Some of them came up with really good designs. They certainly have potential. We now encourage them to fine -tune their designs with the help of their school art teachers and submit them to the Singapore 2010 Logo Design Competition,” said Mr Ooi Inn Bok, Director of the School of Design at Nanyang Polytechnic.

Students were grateful for the pointers given to help develop logo designs for the competition. Rachel Neo, 14, student of Deyi secondary school said, “We wanted to join the competition when it was first announced but were unsure with our initial designs. We will definitely use what we learnt today into our logo designs before submitting them to the competition.”

Batmunkh Solongo from Siglap Secondary School added that she learnt more about the factors that should be considered when designing a logo. “I now understand that so much more goes into creating an effective logo.”

“The NYP mentors were very helpful and patient with us. They also gave us tips on how to improve our logo designs,” said Hoh Mei Xuah of Kranji Secondary school.

Our mentors were equally eager to share with the secondary school students what they have learnt during their course, like second-year Visual Communications student, Fazal Khan. “Many of them were very enthusiastic and asked a lot of questions on how they can improve their logo designs. In fact, I found some of the initial logo designs outstanding,” he said.

Mr Teo Ser Luck, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Community Development, Youth and Sports & Transport, and Mr Zainudin Nordin, Mayor, Central Singapore District, were also at the workshop to view the students’ creations, interact with them and give encouragement.

Said Mr Teo,”This is a great initiative. We wanted to start a community event and I commend NYP for coming up with this. The designs I’ve seen show the creativity of our youths, and we hope that these designs can be used. After all, it’s the Youth Olympic Games – so it’s their (the youths’) games.”

“This is a very interesting event, to see how our young people work hard to portray their ideas. From what I’ve seen, they have much initiative. We want to get young people involved and excited about the YOG and make them realise they have a role to play,” added Mr Zainudin Nordin, Mayor, Central Singapore District.

The Singapore 2010 Logo Design Workshop is the second event organised by NYP this year in support of the YOG.

In January, NYP organised a push-up event to support Singapore’s bid to host the 2010 Youth Olympic Games (YOG).

About 2,500 NYP students and staff completed a record 147,433 push-ups within six hours - setting a new mark in the Singapore Book of Records. Amongst them were former and current Singapore athletes James Wong (discus), Prema Govindan (sprints), Ng Kean Mun (pole vault), Lim Heem Wei (gymnastics), Lim Zhicong (swimming) and Amanda Ng (bowling).