SFC Digital Media Students Make Top 10 in National Competition

May 29, 2009

Students in Santa Fe College's digital media program continue to collect national accolades. Two SFC teams placed in the top 10, winning Honorable Mentions, in the 4th Annual Yellow Pages Advertising Challenge, the Yellow Pages Association's student design competition. The contest consisted of designing a yellow pages ad for an actual client, U-Store-It, which provided "real world" elements to both the competition assignment and judging.

According to the competition's webpage, the students' task was to "create visually creative work that has great potential to break through directory clutter without sacrificing the communication of information likely to be important to the consumer when s/he is about to make a purchase decision."

Students entered in teams consisting of class groups sponsored by their instructor, with approximately 1,000 entries from nearly 150 colleges, universities and design schools.

The judging took place on May 8. Santa Fe placed two teams in the top nine out of 1,000 teams and was the only two-year program to place in the top 10 entries. The remainder of the winning teams were from four-year programs at schools such as Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), Clemson University, and University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill. The only other school to place two teams in the top nine was SCAD.

Winning honorable mentions were:

• Marien Zambrano, sponsored by professor Rhonda Peyton, for an ad titled "Life Uncluttered." The judges wrote of Zambrano's ad: "Adult children returning home — with all their belongings — is a growing demographic trend and, as this ad illustrates, one that is directly related to the need for self storage. Beyond this, the ad's headline is powerful and unique and the communication of key benefits comes through very clearly."

• Rye Mason, Matt West and Kevin Cloutier, in a team sponsored by adjunct instructor Jim Baer, for an ad titled, "It's Like Having a Gigantic Closet.' According to the Yellow Pages Association: "The overall approach of this ad is very strong and differentiating. The ad speaks in a friendly and meaningful way to the reader. The judges were especially impressed with the original artwork created by the student team. "

"We are unbelievably proud of our students and instructors," said Jorge Ibáñez, Coordinator, Digital Media Technology. "The competition was stiff, but I am not surprised they placed. They do well in every competition they enter. We behave more like a small university than a large college. We are crossing that boundary every day."

Both Zambrano and Mason graduated with an associate degree in Digital Media Technology this spring.

Designs

• Marien Zambrano's image – Life Uncluttered http://www.ypa-academics.org/cc/store/08hm-nest.jpg

• Rye Mason, Matt West and Kevin Cloutier's image – It's Like Having a Gigantic Closet http://www.ypa-academics.org/cc/store/08hm-closet.jpg

• Yellow Pages Association webpage about the competition http://www.ypa-academics.org/cc/index08.html