D&AD Student Award won by 2nd year Visual Communication: Graphic Design student

The highly acclaimed D&AD Student Awards 2008, in their 30th year, attracted over 3600 student teams from across the world. The world's respected and renowned designers, advertising creatives and business professionals compiled and judged the 30 real world briefs set to challenge and identify the best new talent in advertising and design.

Undergraduate James Garside, aged 22, studying BA (Hons) Visual Communication: Graphic Design won the coveted prize of Student Yellow Pencil in the Advertising category for a campaign for Breast Cancer Awareness. James has only just completed his second year at BIAD.

It's rare for a 2nd year student to win the Student Yellow Pencil. And strengthening his achievement James was the only individual competing for this prestigious Award. Up against teams of worldwide students, the Finalists in the Advertising category were: The Miami Ad School Hamburg; The Red & Yellow School, set up by the agency Ogilvy, Cape Town; and Buckinghamshire New University.

Congratulations James! The Yellow Pencil engraved with his name is now a prized possession of a beaming James Garside.

The D&AD Awards offer the creative community the opportunity to be judged by its harshest critics - its peers. Over 270 eminent creative practitioners selected for their expertise in their field, were looking for great ideas that were well executed and appropriate to their mediums.

The brief set by the charity: Break Through Breast Cancer, to raise awareness that breast cancer can strike women at any age, is a highly emotive and personal dilemma. James' blue sky thinking, ideas and creative talent resulted in the winning pieces. By transforming the innocence of classical pieces of art produced centuries ago by masters: Titian - Venus d'Urbino and Bouguerean - The birth of Venus, James created a subtle yet powerful image to drive the message to the heart of ladies.

'Creative Elegance' was cited as the Dress Code for the Award Ceremony, held at Shoreditch Town Hall, London, 26th June. Within the first couple of minutes of the opening, James' name was announced and he was collecting his Yellow Pencil. The dream of many aspiring and experienced creative individuals had become reality for James.

Unaware of the incredulous mixture of nerves and excitement James felt, the attendance of the industry elite made the night more special as they joined him in a toast to his tremendous achievement, plus it allowed him to mingle with people he respected. James can also upload his work to 'Talentpool" on the D&AD website. which allows prospective employers to check out talented and would-be creative practitioners. His work will also be published in the D&AD Student Annual. Plus his winning pieces were exhibited at Earls Court during the D&AD New Blood Exhibition (23-25 June).

Upon receiving his Yellow Pencil he claimed "I've set myself a challenge now. I've got to keep doing this".

Setting himself a challenge does not appear to be too demanding for James. Since the age of 15 he's wanted to be 'in Advertising' and he has the ability to juggle an abundance of interests from: freelance and agency work; music production; to full-time study.

Persevering with his applications to BIAD - he was offered a place after his second attempt - he states "one of the most important aspects of my learning curve from the Graphic Design module is that in Advertising, it's having and exploring ideas with creative thinking, rather than technical capability that's important. Having the chance to design and communicate my ideas to meet a brief set by any of the numerous industry contacts the Department of Visual Communication has, is really inspiring and valuable. And our tutors present us with many opportunities to shine in the eyes of industry. Can't wait for next year!".