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BYU Arts Takes Home Gold at the UCDA Design Competition

Out of more than 1,000 entries, BYU students and faculty won top award for their performing arts posters at the University and College Designers Association Competition

Every year the UCDA Design Competition recognizes the best of the design work done nationally to promote educational institutions. This year, BYU Arts competed against 1,269 entries and won gold for the 2017-18 BYU theatre season posters and an excellence award for the 2017-18 CFAC Faith+Works lecture series posters. Only five Gold awards were given out, and BYU’s competition included top design firms such as Design Army, Pentagram and Doyle Partners.

“It amazes me that the work I have been a part of can be displayed at a national level next to some big design firms,” said Nick Mendoza, Creative Services Manager for the CFAC. “It also gives me great joy to see BYU get exposure like this. I’m very proud to receive another Gold award at the UCDA design competition. It is amazing to think that out of 1,269 entries we received one of the five Gold awards.”

BYU team at UCDA event

Stephanie Ottehenning McAllister, BFA Graphic Design student involved in the creation process, said, “As a student I mostly created singular posters. It was huge for me to step up and take ownership over the execution of a collective series like the yearly Theatre posters. As a student, you think that graduating will suddenly make you confident in your skills, but it’s really being given the opportunity to make decisions using everything you’ve been taught about good design and seeing it play out.”

“The collaboration with [Mendoza], who I saw as a mentor, was humbling and an honor for me. I was able to work side by side with a designer I respect, work through problems and push the project with full confidence from him. I realized I just needed to apply what I learned and trust the process,” McAllister said.

McAllister said of the collaboration process, “As the art director, Nick was looking at big picture concepts, and I was aiding in some of the details. We split the task of iterating the imagery of each poster in half, however, and once we narrowed down the concepts we liked, we posted them up in order of date to see how they would look next to each other. I headed up the challenge of finding the colors to tie them together while keeping each one true to the content of the show, and manipulating the lettering and font to make each title unique.”

“I used these competitions to showcase the hard work and skill sets our students have,” Mendoza said. “These awards showcase the talent of our students, BYU Arts, the Department of Design and BYU.”

Photos courtesy of Nick Mendoza.