Arts and Architecture

Stuckeman School students recognized in national design contest

Chill, a WatchOS app designed by Taylor Gunnells, was honored in the user experience/user interface category. Credit: Taylor Gunnells. All Rights Reserved.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Three Stuckeman School graphic design students in the College of Arts and Architecture were recognized for their work in the 2022 AIGA Baltimore Flux Student Design Competition.

A nationwide student design competition, Flux annually celebrates the best creative work produced each year by undergraduate and graduate students. Entries are selected by a jury of leading design professionals and are showcased both in a gallery exhibition and online. Awards are given in seven categories: identity, packaging, poster, publication, social impact design, user experience/user interface (UX/UI) and video/motion graphics.

For the 2022 Flux competition, 631 entries were received with the creative jury recognizing 205 designs with awards and honors.

Taylor Gunnells, a fourth-year graphic design student, was honored in the user experience/user interface category. She designed her Flux submission last year in two different courses with Ryan Russell, associate professor of graphic design: GD 301: Experience Design and GD 303: Applied Experience Design.

Gunnells developed Chill, a WatchOS app designed to show users their anxiety-related patterns. Users can enter a brief description of how they’re feeling into the app. The data visualizations appear in daily, weekly, monthly and annual views so the users can track patterns and note what is triggering anxiety.

Gabrielle Harris, a third-year graphic design student, was honored in the publication category for developing a design project called “FORM Magazine" in her Typography 2 course with Emily Burns, assistant professor of graphic design.

“FORM Magazine is a place for you to feel good in your own skin,” Harris said. “This publication is meant to confront the media’s beauty standards and boldly claim our bodies as our own.”

The magazine’s March issue features a personal interview with Diana Di Poce, the founder of Canada’s first plus-size magazine, DARE, according to Harris.

Harris also earned honors last year in the competition in the identity category for her work developing cohesive branding materials for a Halloween-themed event.

Rachel Smith, also a fourth-year graphic design student, was recognized in the video/motion graphics category. Smith, who developed the project in her Applied Experience Design class last year taught by Russell, created a title sequence for the film “Knives Out.”

“The title sequence reflected the traditional murder-mystery elements from ‘Knives Out’ through old silhouette portraits and film texture while hinting at each character’s unique traits with cut-out, photographic details,” Smith said.

Winners were recognized at a reception on Feb. 3. The winning pieces can be viewed on the Flux competition website.

Last Updated February 21, 2023

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