Y3 Illustrator wins top award at comic art fest

 

Hazel Mason (21), aka Hi-Viz Hazel, has beaten off stiff competition to win the top award at this year’s Lakes International Comic Art Festival.
Hazel, originally from Stoke-on-Trent and a third year BA (Hons) Illustration student at the University of Cumbria, entered the competition to re-imagine the 1940s comic book character ‘The Spirit’.
“I envisioned Will Eisner’s character actually in the Lake District”, she said. “The feedback I’ve had is that the judges really liked it; it was very different from what they’d seen before. I think everyone went into it making an entire comic book, because it's a comic festival, but I thought I’d put my own spin on it.”
She concluded, “Winning made me feel great and now I feel even more confident to enter prestigious awards and competitions in the future.”
No stranger to success, Hi-Viz Hazel’s work has also been recognised in this year’s Cheltenham Illustration Awards. From over 1000 entrants, she was selected as one of sixty successful illustrators to be listed in their 2017 annual.
See more of Hazel's work here.

‘The Spirit’ was a 16-page comic section which ran for 12 years from 1940-1952. It introduced action, mystery and adventure through the crime stopping escapades of its hero ‘The Spirit’ – a dashing, masked vigilante who dispensed justice in ‘Central City’ and beyond.
2017 marks the 100^th anniversary of the birth of ‘The Spirit’s’ creator, Will Eisner, and to celebrate the centenary, the Lakes International Comic Art Festival commissioned the competition in homage to comic book legend.

hazelpmason.co.uk

27th Letter Winner!

Our heartiest Grillust™ congratulations go out to 3rd year Graphic Design student David Guthrie (21) who was announced as the winner of the 27th Letter international design competition 

The competition was judged by Phil Cleaver, designer of The Book Collector and Professor in the Creative Industries at Middlesex University, James Fergusson, Editor of The Book Collector, Fergus Fleming, writer and co-publisher at Queen Anne Press, and Lilian Lindblom-Smith, Head of Graphic Design at Middlesex University.

In the end, David captured the judges imagination, winning £250 and a beautiful trophy book designed by Phil Cleaver. The winning entry?That’s right, the winning entry is lol. Injecting a little more humour into the alphabet as we know it!

David Guthrie, competition winner (lol)

A surprised Roddy Hunter, Director of the Institute of the Arts with 3rd year Graphic Designer David Guthrie.

In 1947, while helping out at the typographical magazine Alphabet & Image, James Bond creator, Ian Fleming conceived the idea of a competition for the best interpretation of a twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet. Entries had to have a distinct purpose and would be judged by him alone. This year's competition followed Fleming’s rules: the letter must conform to the alphabet as known in English-writing countries and must represent a particular sound or combination of sounds. All that is necessary is that the entrant must be over sixteen years of age and have an idea as to how written English could be improved.

Tapping into the current zeitgeist of text lingo infiltrating mainstream written language,  David decided to create a character representing the acronym LOL...

...and he won! lol. 

David is now setting about designing, amongst others ROFL, WEG, SMH, WTH, WTF & TTFN characters all to be sold as limited edition posters! 

Stress Busters

Final year graphic design and illustration students across the land will be experiencing hyper-tension about the prospect of leaving the comfortable, protective womb of University life. Well, all except for our Liam (21), who just doesn't do stress.

Liam Robinson (21). This is the closest he's ever been to 'stressed-out'!

There are several commercially available stress busting 'toys' available for the neurotics out there...

...but nothing really suited to the Grillust™ fraternity. Until now!

When the folks at Poster Project challenged students to design a poster around the word 'stress', 3rd year students Katie Lock (21), Vincent Walden (21) and Maddy Mould (21) responded with a poster that stress-heads can all get behind, or more accurately tear-up. 

As Poster Project (run by Glasgow design agency Front Page®) said, "We were overwhelmed – physically and emotionally – with the response, so much so we had to extend the number of winners from three to five. We had entries from Estonia to Chile, and loads of points in between, and in the end – after much deliberation – we had our winners"... which included the entry by our very own Lock, Walden & Mould (still all 21)

And here it is...

In recognition of their efforts, Lock, Walden & Mould will be winging their way up to Glasgow to receive a bumper bag of Sherbet Lemons and attend a celebratory slap-up feed at the town hall.

The rest of us are staying in Carlisle, tearing up bits of paper.

Relevant websites:
Katie Lock, Liam Robinson, Maddy Mould, Vincent Walden, Poster Project, Front Page

YCN Commendation

The Grillustazzi congratulates 3rd Year students Josh Ford (21) on attaining a commendation in the 'Alphabites Cereal Packaging' brief in this year's YCN Student Awards.

FEELING GOOD :-)

You might remember that one of last year's super-star Grillust™ graduates, Rachy McKenzie (33), was a worthy winner in the 2012 YCN design briefs, with some juicy typography she created for a Feel Good drinks campaign.

The fruity folk at Feel Good liked her approach that much, they've been working with Rachy over the past year to develop the campaign which is now live across the UK...

Rachy McKenzie. 100% Natural Born Grillust™