Up Close with Our 2010 First-Place Winner

Up Close with Our 2010 First-Place Winner To kick off this year's Student Design Competition (get all the rules here), we're going to take a closer look at this past year's winners to give you a little inspiration.

Elliot Stokes, now a recent grad from the University of Georgia, was our first-place winner in the 2010 competition. Thanks to his self-drawn illustrations, terrific sidebars and tons of great visual entry points within a balanced layout, he wowed our judges, earning himself the $2,500 Adobe Scholarship in honor of B.W. Honeycutt, the Adobe Creative Suite and an internship at Inc. magazine. 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!

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First-Place
ELLIOT STOKES
SCHOOL:  University of Georgia
LEVEL:  Senior
INSTRUCTOR:  Julie Spivey
CATEGORY:  How-To

What was your inspiration in creating your entry?
I chose to focus on professional networking for my entry because of its importance to recent graduates, including myself, who are looking for new jobs or internships. Taking this topic that could be viewed as being dull or uninteresting and making it fun and engaging was key. I incorporated my own drawings with this goal in mind.  

What was the biggest challenge in creating your entry?
Creating a design and corresponding illustrations that were simple, yet strong. Maintaining restraint can be pretty difficult.

Did you participate in any publication- or design-related campus activities?
I was a member of the UGA Graphic Design Club and of AIGA Atlanta while I was in school.

What are your favorite magazines?
Inc. (of course), The New York Times Magazine, Good, Nylon, Paper, GQ, and most recently, New York.

How did your internship go this summer, and what was your favorite part of it and/or being in NYC?
My internship has been great. The people at Inc. were very kind, my superiors inspired me, I was able to contribute daily AND the office space was amazing. My favorite part about being in NYC are rooftops, the food and the art.

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Wanna know how you can enter the 2011 competition?
Click here for all the details.

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