Bob Glenister

The names of the judges, were Gavin Turner CEO of Avery Africa, Dyelan Copeland CEO of Sign Africa. Bob Glenister CEO of Roland Africa. Gerald Yapp was the independent Art Critic and the person who designed the creative briefs. Withholding the judges names is standard practice until after the competition closing as their should be no undue influence placed on these individuals before the last entry is in.

I hope this clarifies the issue.

Bob

Rohan

Hi

Regarding this whole debate issue; I obviously think this lucien guy is out of line although I also hate the fact that a deadline was moved (I do understand the whole Sunday thing - so ja). But just out of interest I would like to know who the independent art critic was and what he has done. I think not releasing the names of the judges takes away credibility.

So that's that. I'm not a finalist. This is just my opinion. next year I hope I have a chance of such a competition again.

Rohan

Bob Glenister

Hi Everyone,
I have reviewed most of the posts on the Blog and overall I think, although some of the discussions have been uncomfortable for all of us some good hopefully will come out of this experience.

I have picked up on some of the issues raised, hopefully I can help to clear these up for you.

1. Winners profiled: No profiling is done, we in actual fact have tried this year to broaden the base of entrants and we have been pleasantly surprised by the diversity of the people that have entered with even some Junior Schools entering. This will hopefully expand and we will need to expand the prizes for next year to include a Junior element. I stress the judges had no idea of the entrants names or identities when viewing the entries. (Lesson1: next year we will video the judging process so that you all can understand the difficulty the judges have at making their choices.)

2. Finalists who were finalists in previous years, this is a lesson for all of you, we as judges were surprised to be advised, that finalists from previous years were once again in the finalists mix once we handed them to the administration staff. These individuals and companies have honed their skills from year to year and should be applauded, that given the quality standard increase that they have not remained in one spot but bettered their skills. Everyone should learn from exposure to better and better competition as this improves the overall impression of the graphics industry from outsiders and makes us all walk a little prouder. as graphics designers.

3. Eliminating Roland customers, this would not be fair at all. The judges are chosen, so their is no bias. Avery and Sign Africa service the complete industry which includes our competitors they cannot be seen to be biased to Roland as the other suppliers in the industry would not support them and they would go out business in an instant.. Plus if you asked Roland to exclude their customers you would have to ask Avery and Sign Africa to do the same. We would be left with less than 30 entries. and the objective of the competition to improve the quality of all your work would fall flat as you would exclude some of South Africa's best designers. The independent Art critic has no interest in printing machines or vinyl. We were very careful in loading the judging in this way so that we could never be accused of bias.

4. Closing date, this was necessary due to an overload on our server which is located in Germany and unfortunately it fell on a Sunday and we could not get hold of our service provider as the closing date was a Sunday. (Lesson 2. Don't choose a closing date on a Sunday.)

5.Voting at the competition and being allowed to promote your own work. This is a market reality and remember this is a Commercial Art competition not a Fine Arts competition. The market rules and kicks butt. Promotion is part of the game you as artists need to learn if you are to survive in this dog eat dog world.

I think I have answered most of the concerns raised if not, please feel free to send me a mail or post a question.

Have a wonderful weekend and most of all have fun and think how you can make this competition more fun.

We are investing 2 Million in you guys, you have a choice use this to create positive energy in the industry or use it negatively. If you insist on using it negatively, I think you all realise that I will be gone.

Bozo the clown.

Bob Glenister

This Blog has been created in the interest of receiving as many posts as possible to understand how to serve you better next year or if at all.

Any constructive criticism is gladly accepted. The judges were not aware of anybodies identity when we chose the winners. The judges were made up of one representative from Roland one from Avery, one from Sign Africa and one independent Art Critic.

Each Judge had to loose some of their favorites in the process of judging as it was democratic vote (one vote per judge) this is inevitable.

One of the things that struck us this year was the quality of the entries and hence the introduction of a wild card vote as we all thought that some of our favorites
were eliminated in the voting process, the disadvantages of democracy.

We have tried to be fair by creating this blog so that people can express their opinions, but I would like people to desist from bashing each other. This only creates bad feelings and is not helpful in building constructive energy.

Constructive criticism allows you to stand on the shoulders of the person you assisted. Destructive criticism allows you to walk on their bones, this leaves you in one place and does not allow you to become taller and greater.

You all have a beautiful evening

Bob

Lucien

Candice,

All the entries are still online, my entries were 91, 96, 111, 114, also, the 24 finalists designs are on displayed if you look on the wrap to the max introduction page.

There are some nice designs in the finalist’s category and to be honest, when it comes to art and design it’s all really up for interpretation. In no way am I saying that my work was better than anyone else’s.

I do not wish to belittle anybodies work or say that this or that design should not have made it. My issue is that some or all of the finalists were not chosen because of their design work but rather because of WHO they are. Again this is just speculation on my part based on the early knowledge of who the finalists would be and the coincidence with the timing of my photo.

My impression from the emails I’ve received so far is that some or all of the finalists were previous competitors and one lady even confirmed knowing someone that won last year. There seems to be some relationship here.

The speculation on my part is that the contestants were profiled, photo’s used for recognition purposes, it was really a matter of WHO should be a finalist.

I would like to point out that these are purely my views on this matter and that none of the other contestants are in cahoots with me. Roland is welcome to exercise their right to take any action they feel necessary against me.

Candice Bradfield

Hi Lucien

Out of interest, which category did you enter? It's a pity they have changed the website as I would have liked to look at all the entries. Like you said, some of them were cut and paste jobs, and I would even go as far as to say that most of the entries (in the grand format prize section) did not constitute good design. The scale of this particular project makes it really amazing, there is so much you can do with the whole side of a building - yet most of the entries looked like your
standard level poster. Please excuse my ranting, but I was very excited to take part in the competition.

I feel sorry for those people who were still waiting to hear the results. When Tracy (I think it was, but stand corrected) called me to ask if I was attending the Awards Party, I said that I wasn't sure and asked if the finalists were going to be notified. When she told me politely that the finalists had already been told I did feel like a bit of a tool. I don't think it was made explicitly clear that the finalists had been told in the email sent on 19/08/08. Is there anything to stop them from announcing the winners before the party? Obviously they know, and would have told their friends so it's no state secret. I will be interested to see how they respond further to the situation.

Lezanne Bekker

I'm just going to reply what I have replied to Lucien. I have no idea what the problem really is, so I'm not going to say anything regards to Lucien's comments, since I'm not too sure what to do.
Personally I think, and what I've told him is that I think the judges had enough time to decide. It's Roland's competition. It's Roland's rules. The competition ended early August which I believe gave the judges far enough time to decide what they're looking for. It's not for us to decide who should be finalists or not. I think the judges judged according to specific specifications that they were looking for. And personally I'm more than thrilled to have known that I'm a finalist even before the week of the 25th of August.

How and what Roland decides I think is purely their own since it's their competition. Maybe I'm wrong in this aspect but as for me, I really dont have or see any problems whatsoever.

Hope I do not offend anyone in this matter or through my comment Whatever happens from here on depends on Roland. As I said, it's their competition.

Kind Regards

Lezanne