Students and faculty representing BYU at the One Club for Creativity, “The Young Ones,” hold the awards they won for their work.
Students from the BYU School of Communications and the Department of Design competed in an event hosted by one of the most prestigious graphic design and advertising organizations in the world
BYU design and advertising students dominated at The One Club for Creativity competition held each year in New York City — considered to be one of the top international award competitions for advertising and graphic design students.
While the categories for these awards are vast, recognition in even one category showcases excellence in creativity and is a high honor.
Collectively, BYU took home a new school record of awards during this year’s One Club for Creativity competition. Six advertising students and one graphic design student received gold for their portfolio submissions — more than any other university.
To win a portfolio award, students must submit their best pieces in a portfolio as a single unit, which the judges — approximately 10 industry leaders from various artistic specialities — will look at collectively.
This year, The One Club for Creativity reported that there were 8,751 portfolios submitted from designers in 45 different countries. From these submissions, the judges chose 14 gold winners from diverse disciplines, half of which were BYU students.
“The portfolio competition in particular is held in such high esteem because they are not just recognizing one piece in your portfolio, but your entire body of work,” said Alexa Spiroff, an advertising student. “To be a portfolio winner means the judges are acknowledging that every piece of work in your book is award-winning.”
Cam Tribe and Sara McLaws won for advertising. Connor Dean, Jedediah Thunell, Bentley Rawle and Alexa Spiroff won for film and TV commercials. Laura McNeill won for graphic design.
In addition to the seven golds won by BYU students for portfolios, four individual advertising projects won gold, three won silver and one won bronze. They also won five gold cubes, two silver cubes and one bronze cube in the ADC Awards category. In the One Show category, BYU advertising students won one gold pencil, one silver pencil and three merit awards.
McCall Keller, another BYU graphic design student, won a bronze cube for his redesign of King Kong Magazine.
Nineteen advertising and graphic design projects were merit winners — all contributing to the competition’s ultimate ranking of BYU as the #2 program in the world.
BYU advertising professor Jeff Sheets, who is a board member and judge for the One Club for Creativity, was asked to present the portfolio awards and give students their awards on stage.
“It was a very fulfilling moment for me personally to be able to present so many awards to our very own BYU students,” said Sheets. “I had witnessed first-hand all of their hard work and creative determination.”
Winning such a prestigious award can help students put their names out there and launch their professional careers after they leave BYU.
“The One Club is really well known across the graphic design and advertising communities, so to be able to have that on my resume would really help with validating my work,” said McNeill. “I think even the networking that can happen from it is valuable.”