Art Student Wins National Design Awards

04/06/2020

by Ali O'Neal, English major 

Glitch, an annual national juried student competition and show sponsored by Mississippi State University, named winners in six categories, and JSU art Major Hannah Jones won two of the awards.

The design competiton holds an exhibition of design work selected by a jury of professional designers. Design categories include branding/packaging, book/publication design, advertising, illustration, typography, and interactive.

Jones won “Best in Branding” for a logo she designed for the JSU Potters Guild. She was excited to create this style guide in a group project for her Graphic Design III Class. She says that her group, composed of herself, Alden Guinn, Carleigh Peters, and Abby Deason, was inspired by “the natural earthen qualities in clay.” As the team leader, logo creator, and style guide designer, Jones led her team in “branding applications including digital and promotional materials to bring the brand to life.” Her personal responsibilities in the group were to perfect the logo design, create five pattern designs, design typefaces, write body copy, and layout the style guide.

One specific detail that Jones’ group is especially proud of in the logo is the bowl. “The layered bowl along with a crack represents the uniqueness of the Potters Guild,” she says.

Jones was also excited to receive the “Best in Typography” award for her Verdana Type Specimen Book. The book was a project from her Graphic Design I class, and “challenges the constraints of the Verdana font.” Jones explains that, although the Verdana font is “a modern font that is primarily used for screen purposes,” the font might be more versatile. “It usually functions as a default font on Macs and PCs,” she says. “By incorporating ‘Googie’ style into the type-specimen book, the intent is to rebrand the modern font with a more retro-themed style. I wanted to rebrand this font from its previous connotations.” As for the “Googie” style, Jones explains that it “pays tribute to the space age and atomic age from 1930s Southern California.”