DESKTOP publishing, the modern world's giant in communications, has recently established a strong foothold at the City Polytechnic - with the opening of a state-of-the-art studio.
The studio serves the tertiary institution's first batch of students taking English for Professional Communication (Higher Diploma). The special facilities will enable students to be ''taken on board'' their place of employment the moment they graduate this summer.
Opened in February, the $1.2 million facility has the most up-to-date hardware and software available to help students carry out high quality projects.
''The facility simulates real-world communication,'' said Bruce Ma, lecturer and the studio's manager.
''Students can produce professional quality documents, create colourful presentations, send electronic mail, do video editing or use phone and fax.'' For her final-year project - a newsletter on China tourism - Joanna Chan used a flat-bed scanner to study scenic images from publications before inserting them into her document.
Adding her touch of design, Joanna had the choice of extracting fonts and clipart (drawings and photo images) from CD-ROMs, editing her drawing, and using graphics with ''Corel Draw'' or ''Harvard Graphics'' before getting the final product of a neat laser and colour inkjet printout.
City Polytechnic will continue to expand and upgrade the facility. A $200,000 laser colour printer has already been ordered.