We visited National Taiwan University of Arts (NTUA). NTUA is a national art university where international film directors have been produced.

Ms. Allan explained about JPDA and ASPaC, followed by the lecture, “Package design that creates branding power” by Mr. Sasada, chairman and then the briefing of workshop.

We moved into another classroom, where students were seated by the designated table in groups.

When Mr. Sasada said a word “Let’s do short self –introduction first. Some may never be in the same class before”, the class suddenly laughed. In fact there were students with different grade gathered in this class.

There were also three students from Chaoyang University of Technology in Taichung, where Mr. Mike Kao of TPDA taught. It took them two and a half hours to get to this place. “Let’s enjoy the workshop, biting ‘Koala no march’!” More applause. They started with concept sheet. There were lively discussions on each table. 40 minutes passed very quickly. As they discussed, they proceeded into production process.  

Cute Koala characters were drawn on imitation vellum one after another. Some were working on the floor or corridor, spreading vellum paper, cutting or connecting the package.

Then, two students came in. They were talking with Ms. Hsing-Jung Hsu. They turned out be the first grade students who were not able to join the workshop due to limited participation. We felt sorry for this and gave them “Koala no march” and ASPaC fryer instead. In return, they promised that they would take part in ASPaC2016. When Ms. Hsing-Jung Hsu announced that it was nearly the time for finish, some students pleaded with her not to say that. We felt their eagerness to continue to work.

Then the time for presentation.

We were very impressed and surprised at their unique ideas.

There was an impromptu three-dimensional object made by an empty box, or a presentation with adlib performance, all of which would lead to the marvelous presentations with lots of laughter from students and teachers together. 

NTUA students seemed to be creative, unconventional, and positive to enjoy working.