Private Local University Student Won Design Contest For A Japanese Soy Sauce Brand In Conjunction With Hari Raya
A 19-year-old MMU student won the grand prize for designing the product packaging that combines both Malaysian and Japanese features.
In a 3 week contest done by a partnership with a private local university and an international sauce brand, Mona Tamer emerged as the grand winner of Hamadaya’s “Soy-It Design Contest” – earning a cash prize of RM1k.
Besides that, the 19-year-old girl’s design was also featured on the Japanese soy sauce brand’s limited edition product packaging in conjunction with Hamadaya’s Aidilfitri 2022. The design contest was done for the student of Multimedia University Malaysia (MMU) Cyberjaya, specifically from the Faculty of Creative Multimedia (FCM). It had over 50 submissions by its due date, 24th February 2022.
The contest challenged students to create a design to fit into the company’s limited edition Aidilfitri product packaging. With that, various designs were submitted but only one was chosen to be featured. Since it’s for the Aidilfitri edition, students had to create a packaging design that incorporates the Malaysian culture and also the product’s origin country’s elements (Japan).
The winner, an international Year 2 Advertising Design student Mona Tamer, made a design that has a mixture of both Malaysian and Japanese heritage elements. The design was a sketch of traditional kampung houses with Japanese strokes and motifs, which represents the branding of Hamadaya for Malaysians. She also went with the soybean colour to align with the brand’s chosen colour from the Pantone Color of the Year.
“I’m very happy and honoured to win the contest as I feel like there are a lot more talented students in the Faculty of Creative Multimedia.
This contest is a good opportunity for my course which is Advertising Design and it aligns with one of my subjects which is Packaging Design.
I believe this is a stepping stone for me to gain more experience in the future and get my talents to be displayed for a bigger audience.”
Mona Tamer
This contest is also done in line with the brand’s objective to provide students with opportunities to experience their designs on real brands’ product packaging. Apart from giving incentives, the students can also have a taste of a designer’s life.
“With this initiative, we aim to nurture young talents to leverage on their interest and talents to produce top quality products packaging designs that are on par with international standards.
And speaking from the marketing perspective, we believe that brands need to take advantage of the young talents’ creative minds as this will not only allow diversity in the products you offer, but encourage them to own their talents which will subsequently empower them to thrive as working adults.”
Lili Ho, Hamadaya’s Vice President of Marketing
The prize-giving ceremony was done yesterday at MMU Cyberjaya with both the Vice President of Marketing for Hamadaya, Lili Ho and the Dean of Faculty of Creative Multimedia, MMU Cyberjaya, Dr Lim Kok Yong.
This is truly a remarkable opportunity for students to hone their talents for their future jobs apart from also giving them extra motivation with rewards.
Congratulations, Mona!