UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Two posters designed by Ryan Russell, associate professor of graphic design at Penn State, have been accepted into the 2019 Bienal del Cartel Bolivia BICeBé, a biennial elite international design event in Bolivia.

More than 10,670 design submissions from 287 countries were received as a result of an international call for posters with only 340 of those entries — or about 3 percent — making it into the BICeBé main exhibition. A professional jury will review the work and the winning entries will be revealed on Nov. 20 as part of a five-day celebration of graphic design and visual arts education in the capital city of La Paz.

The call was put out for both published works, which were created from April 2017 until March 2019, and work that has never appeared in public, including on blogs, websites or social media. The three categories for published posters in the competition are cultural, social and advertising or commercial, while the two categories for unpublished work are specific to posters on the topic of “The Era of Disinformation” and animated GIFs on the topic of “Women’s Empowerment.”

Russell’s poster for “Deconstructing Symbols of Hate in America,” a lecture held on campus in fall 2018, was selected in the cultural category. His other poster that was selected, this time in the advertising category, was for an immersive augmented reality exhibition held during the spring semester, called “TOUCH.”

Since its inception in 2009, BICeBé has attracted the best designs from Latin America and around the world while promoting a humanistic approach to design. One of the main objectives of the event is to showcase the design work of Latin American designers on an international stage. It also emphasizes the academic aspects of design through the many activities planned in La Paz and beyond during the event, including satellite exhibitions both around the country and around the globe, the Design Congress, teaching seminars and workshops at collaborating universities.