We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer Youssef Abdel Zaher about their original and creative Credit Hours design work. Youssef Abdel Zaher is an award-winning communication designer, that makes our world a better place with their original credit hours works.
Youssef Abdel Zaher ("YAZ") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work Education Currency Credit Hours. Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
YAZ : when I was working as customer service officer at a bank branch , I observed that clients opened saving and high yield investment accounts to save for their kids to pay for their future education fees , so I decided to make a bank product that cover these needs , so I made a mix between the Education and banking sector through making a co brand bank card loyalty program sponsored between issuing bank and Education institution that reward , card holders for their card transactions at either partner education institution or non partner other institutions , in the form of Education loyalty currencies ; Learning hours rights LHRS ( smaller loyalty currency ) and credit hours rights CRHRs ( bigger loyalty currency ) , LHRS will be accumulated to one CRHR which will be accumulated to required CRHRs to be redeemed for an education product given by the sponsor education institution . In return for the rewards given to cardholders by that education institution , the issuing bank will make an agreement to share part of the profits ( interchange fees ) generated from the card transactions with the sponsor education institution .
YAZ : when I designed that product , I put in my mind that this product must : help people to save for education future expenses by providing benefits to cardholders for making co brand bank card transactions by redeeming earned education loyalty currencies for education products given by sponsor education institutions provide benefits to sponsor issuing bank through getting share of profits ( interchange fees ) according to profit share agreement for every bank card transaction done by cardholder . providing benefits to sponsor education institutions ( in return for rewards given to cardholders) in the form of taking share of profits ( interchange fees ) according to profit share agreement for every bank card transaction done by cardholder . providing benefits to the education sector as a whole through providing an indirect funding mechanism for education institutions which are sponsors in that loyalty program by providing earlier cash streams in the form of share of profits or interchange fees for every bank card transaction done by cardholders , these cash streams can be used to improve the education institutions facilities and education services help the country decreasing its overburdened budget for funding public education institutions by providing indirect funding mechanism for education institutions through the loyalty program
YAZ : As my product is at its concept stage , so I want this product or design to reach people so that they can use it and benefit from it , so I am searching for an institution that turn this design to a real project .
YAZ : the whole project took from me one year because this is the first design experience and I design it myself without a team , it began by the ideation phase by getting the first form of the idea , then I refine it by doing quick researches related to the idea until I reach the final form of the idea , then I made thorough research in different areas related to the idea to collect the needed material to write detailed information about the project , then at the end I got the assistance of an advertising professionals to make the Advertising brochures and Drawings beside the Advertising video clip .
YAZ : Based upon My observance for the bank customers needs to save for their kids education expenses , I discovered how important the issue of Education for people themselves or for their beloved ones ( kids) and for the society as a whole as It represents the most high return long term investment , so I got inspired for that product idea .
YAZ : Until now My project is at the concept stage and it has not been produced or used by another company and I plan to sell or lease its production rights to institutions that have interest in this project , especially that I made international patent filing for that project under no. PCT/ IB 2015/052766 Dated 16/04/2015 and it is published under name " credit hours rights loyalty program system and method of bank card with profit share scheme No. WO/2016/166573 dated 20/10/2016 at WIPO or World intellectual property right website
YAZ : As I said before that My project is a co branded bank card loyalty program sponsored between an issuing bank and education institution , that education institution could be a school , college , university , Education courses provider center , research center ..etc , so the rewards given by that loyalty program which are learning and credit hours rights will be redeemed for education course or product provided by one of the education institutions before mentioned , so target customers can be kids entering the school , so his or her parents will have savings to pay for their kids school fees , a high school student who wants to save money to pay for college or university expenses , can be an employee who wants to develop his career by getting a professional certificate , so he will save money to pay for professional certificate expenses taken at an education courses provider center and so on .
YAZ : This loyalty program have some unique and new aspects compared to other ones , for example using new loyalty currencies like Learning and credit hours rights which are based on Learning and credit hours units used in Education sector to quantify education learning , beside that , Adding “ profit share agreement between the issuing bank and the education institution “ aspect to the product
YAZ : The design competition stipulate using short name with maximum two words to the designs that contribute in the competition , as my design are taking about a loyalty program that give rewards in the form of “Education Loyalty currencies “ , so I make it shortly to be “ Education currency “ project
YAZ : As My project is still at the concept stage , so I used the following : As for hardware , I used my laptop beside using software like Word and PDF for writing and documenting my project description , photoshop for the drawings , Google and youtube for researches , that’s it .
YAZ : I got the assistance of an advertising freelancer for making the project Advertising brochure and an Advertising agency for making the Advertising video clip .
YAZ : I made thorough researches in areas related to the design like education systems in different countries , credit hours system in different countries , different loyalty programs used around the world , banking sector related researches ..etc .
YAZ : I think the research process represented a challenge for me as it is difficult and time consuming to find reliable information sources and collecting and organizing the needed information in a useful form .
YAZ : As I found that A Design competition and award is one of the international renowned design competitions that help designers to market their design works to the people around the world , so this encouraged me to go through this experience
YAZ : this helps me a lot in improving my designing and researching skills as you are presenting your design to be seen by the world , so you must do a good job and do your homework very well .
YAZ : No , thanks .
