Up Close with Our 2011 Student Competition First-Place Winner

As you may have noticed on our homepage, our 2012 Student Design Competition is officially open! To help get the creative juices flowing, we're going to take a closer look at this past year's winners.

Luke Shuman, who recently graduated from Taylor University in Indiana, was our first-place winner in the 2011 competition. He had us hooked with his unique subject matter and cool illustrations and lettering, earning himself the $2,500 Adobe Scholarship in honor of B.W. Honeycutt, the Adobe Creative Suite and an internship at Sports Illustrated. Click through for the 2nd spread of his entry and for some insight into how he came up with his winning entry. We'll be posting the same for our other winners within the next few weeks, so keep coming back!























First Place
LUKE SHUMAN
SCHOOL: Taylor University
LEVEL:  Senior
INSTRUCTOR:  Mary Mahan
CATEGORY:  Entertainment Profile

What was your inspiration in creating your entry?
My approach was pretty pragmatic. I didn't have time to illustrate, so I picked the person I could most comfortably shoot interesting photos of, and let her drive the whole thing. I mean, she wears birds in her hair regularly, so my work was done when she agreed to it (she even typed her birds' names into InDesign for me...). I guess that makes her the inspiration, huh? She made it easy. Come to think of it, I probably owe her something, like Platon's napkin I stole at the gala... Just kidding.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Did we mention part of the prize for all winners is getting to attend our annual awards gala where you can meet and mingle with tons of awesome magazine designers, art directors, illustrators and photographers, just like Luke did?)

What was the biggest challenge in creating your entry?
I'm tempted to give a student's complaint about finding time on top of schoolwork but let's be real here... Never will you have more time to design two spreads completely independently, so that's hardly a "challenge." (EDITOR'S NOTE: He's right!!!)

Any advice for students entering this next competition?
Spend time creating solid imagery, and the layout will take care of itself. In my case, I really didn't even have to consider the concept or content--just twisted my photos into a competition category. The contest is such that you can do whatever you want visually without needing to please anyone content-wise. And again, with almost no time constraints... The spreads should be pretty dope, right?

What magazines do you turn to most for design inspiration?
Wired's design used to be the only reason I would pick up a magazine. And then I fell hard for the editorial world (I blame Tim Leong) when I had the unbelievable chance to intern there. These days my life is riddled with stacks of Field and Stream, Bloomberg Businessweek, GQ, Time, Fortune, and More... (see what I did there??)

Do you participate in any publication- or design-related campus activities while in school? Or have any design-related jobs?
I was on a team of designers that created materials for events, interned in the school's marketing department, and was art director of the campus newspaper (until I burned out trying to do all the layout and illustrate simultaneously).

For your prize internship, where did you intern? What was your favorite part of it?
Sports Illustrated. Best part was realizing that everything was happening right there around me. And that if I wanted to talk to someone designing magazines, I probably could. And did many times. Classic NYC awakening I suppose. Got to meet a lot of great people doing cool things.

What are you up to now?
I am back at my alma mater until May--designing marketing materials and art directing a magazine for prospective students, doing freelance branding and illustration on the side.

Find more of Luke's work on his website: www.lukeshuman.com

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Wanna know how you can enter the 2012 competition to win money, cash and an internship like Luke? Click here for all the details. And comment below if you have any questions.