Hong Kong design students' ad campaign inspired by organic farm visit

Casting aside the modern strategy of drawing in a classroom or researching online, a group of design students found inspiration for a campaign they were working on by visiting a Mui Wo organic farm.

The students, from Savannah College of Art and Design Hong Kong, travelled to Roselle Garden to understand how its owner, Mabel Kwong ran her farm. For many of the students, it was their first excursion to a local farm, where they saw fresh tomatoes hanging on the vines. In talking to Kwong, they learned how organic crops were produced without conventional pesticides and how the farmer created fertilisers through composting.

Picking produce of their own choice, they eventually worked together to cook a meal to experience how different organic food tasted.

This was a collaborative project involving pairs of advertising and art students. After the field trip, the advertising student had to devise a campaign to promote locally produced organic fruits and vegetables while the art student drew the concepts. Art and design classes in Hong Kong and abroad are increasingly engaging students in community-based exercises because it leads them away from the hypothetical to find inspiration by engaging with people. What's more, it is also a way of serving social needs.

The field trip was the brainchild of Savannah College Hong Kong professors Xavier Pick and Ronald Wilcox. In view of the food scandals in recent years, they organised the trip in the hope the students could truly taste the difference between food sold at supermarkets and that sourced directly from farmers.

Living in Mui Wo, Pick discovered that the local farming community had a basic need: although there is a plethora of market gardeners in the area, the public doesn't know about them as they lack publicity.