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