From Hawaii surf culture to a dinosaur-themed ice cream shop, students put creativity on display for district ADDY Awards

Multiple students from Liberty University’s B.F.A. in Graphic Design program earned silver American Advertising (ADDY) Awards in the AAF District 3 competition (North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia) in April. The students submitted class projects that involved creative branding and advertising concepts. All four projects have advanced to the national competition; winners will be announced on May 29.

The American Advertising Awards is one of the industry’s largest creative competitions, attracting nearly 35,000 professional and student entries each year through local club competitions that recognize and reward the spirit of creative excellence in advertising.

Two of the ADDY awards came from a class assignment for Graphic Design Lab II: Integrated Campaigns (ARTS 371), in which student groups were tasked with making a full brand for a museum exhibit. The projects included designing and mocking up interior wall displays, creating exterior advertisements, and assembling a physical narrative literature piece that tells the story of the exhibit in more detail.

Seniors Jaydon Bledsoe, Destiny Gertz, and Olivia Hess created “Secrets of the Saree,” an exhibit that tells the story of the saree, a traditional piece of women’s clothing common in India and Southeast Asia. The exhibit explains the saree’s rich history, regional styles, and weaving traditions while also bringing to light the challenges these women face in keeping the craft alive. Seniors Kate Fricke and Abigail Wanaselja created a conceptual exhibit about the history of Hawaiian surfing and culture that sought to immerse visitors in the space to make them feel as if they were on a beach in the Aloha State.

The other two ADDYs also came from a class assignment for Graphic Design Lab I: Building Visual Identities (ARTS 352), in which students had to create a hypothetical campaign for either an ice cream parlor, a hamburger restaurant, or a coffee shop without falling into clichés of the popular business type. The full campaigns included logo variations, typography, a color palette, an identity package, and several mockups. Sophomore Caleb Smith created branding materials for a unique mock business: a dinosaur-themed ice cream parlor called Sundae Saurus. Working as a pair, seniors Isaac Merrill and Elise Irwin developed an unconventional, desert-inspired honey brand called Honey Hooligan.