Industrial Arts: An Indispensable Requirement of Modern Production

Industrial Arts: An Indispensable Requirement of Modern Production

The training of international programmers in cooperation with foreign enterprises and organisations, including Aptech, NIIT and Cisco, has had a significant impact on information technology training. Alongside official training programmes of information technology departments in universities, this unofficial training system has contributed to developing human resources in the field. However, the programme has not met the demand for human resources in agencies and units and has yet to adequately serve information technology application. That is why the FPT International Institute has recently introduced a new development step by providing training programmes in multimedia graphics, which is provided by the Arena Group from India.

This is a requirement not only for students of arts universities but also information technology students. Nguyen Long Hung, director of the Graphics Centre, said that in the training schedule of the University of Industrial Arts, graphics had yet to develop as it was considered a support subject and not a professional one. Hoang Long, head of the Web Design Department of FPT, said that most information technology students did not have enough knowledge about multimedia for their work at IT firms. Meanwhile, to convince customers to use web and software products, enterprises should develop attractive programmes in terms of aesthetics.

Nguyen Phan Quang Binh, director of the ICOM Advertising Company – the organisers of some television contests with effects designed on PCs - said that all programmers and artists after being recruited to ICOM had to be retrained. This is because programmers do not know about art while graphic artists have poor foreign language and information technology skills. Poor human resources in multimedia graphics has resulted in many film production firms having to hire foreign companies to design effects at expensive costs, which can reach US$1 million per minute in Hollywood, the US. In Vietnam, acceptable prices are put at between VND2 million (US$127) and five million (US$318) per minute, consequently attracting much attention in the field. Therefore, 3D application is used in many advertising films but few Vietnamese enterprises hold market shares in the industry. They mainly implement subcontracts for foreign firms. Market demand will continue to develop and enterprises will have to create suitable designs and structure to meet artistic and aesthetic requirements. For example, to succeed in the mobile phone market, Samsung runs a department with 150 staff members who design between 40 and 50 sample products.

According to forecasts by some information technology enterprises, due to the lack of adequate training of multimedia experts, Vietnam will lack about 17,000 experts in 2006, especially while the entertainment industry is booming. For young people there are many different ways and training costs to join this attractive but shaky career. At the FPT-Arena Centre courses cost between US$950 and US$980 per year.

However, according to some experts from private advertising and cartoon firms, the decisive factor is in the understanding and application of relevant knowledge and technology. Vu Hy Thieu, a prestigious expert in industrial arts, affirmed that if designers focused on arts and aesthetics only when designing an airplane, nobody would dare to board it.

For multimedia graphics to develop in Vietnamese industrial and handicraft industries, comprehensive cooperation between technicians and designers is necessary with information technology acting as the indispensable tool.

• Tan Khoa