A team of students from Vega School of Brand Leadership (Vega), a division of the Independent Institute of Education (The IIE), has won a Yellow Pencil Award in the prestigious D&AD New Blood Awards for their Pantone campaign “Better in the Dark”, effectively putting South Africa on the map in terms of outstanding design and innovation. This is the second year running in which Vega students have won at the annual D&AD awards, which are considered a major event in the international world of design and advertising.
Vega enters its students’ work into the Awards to be judged against other creative, design and advertising students’ work from around the globe. This year’s Awards ceremony and associated creative workshop, facilitated by world renowned international creative directors, will take place in London in July.
The team comprises of four students in their third year of a BA Degree in Branding. Kate-Lyn Meistre, Kathryn Henning and Mikola Hill are majoring in Visual Communications, while Jessica van der Berg has chosen Copywriting as her primary discipline.
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The students received the D&AD brief in March this year and opted to work on the Pantone brand. They pooled their creativity and skills to develop a campaign around the notions that bringing colour and light to an area of Johannesburg would benefit the communities who live there. Using the two issues of a run-down suburb and load shedding as their platform, the students came up with a solution that involved colour. The Pantone swatches they chose provided a lively look and feel to the area, and the glow-in-the-dark aspect worked best during load shedding.
“We were thrilled to hear that we’d won a Yellow Pencil Award for our integrated campaign, Making Yeoville Better in the Dark, by developing the area through glow-in-the-dark colour and bringing back the vibe that Yeoville was once known for,” explains Henning. “Winning this amazing award will open doors for our careers as young women in South Africa and allow us to reach new heights with our creative ideas, changing lives and making the world a better place through innovative design and advertising.”
Dr Carla Enslin, co-founder of Vega, comments that this global recognition of the calibre of Vega students once again confirms that the school is succeeding in helping students unearth their true potential, and in turn shaping and building some of South Africa’s leading young minds to make a lasting impact on the industry in the future.
The students are now permitted to use the Yellow Pencil icon on their future work, proving to the world and prospective clients that their talent has been endorsed by global industry leaders.
For more information on admission requirements and additional details please visit www.vegaschool.com
