Louisiana Tech graphic design entries swept student awards and outdid professionals for the evening’s top prize in regional competition held recently in Bossier City.

Overall, 15 Tech students won 11 awards in the 2003 Shreveport/Bossier Ad Federation’s American Advertising Competition.

The competition, better known as the Addys, is a showcase of professionals’ work from the Shreveport marketing area, and it attracts student entries from Tech, LSU-Shreveport and Centenary College.

A three-judge panel of advertising industry leaders juried both professional and student print and broadcast advertising/graphic design entries.

Awards were presented before a banquet crowd of over 200 marketing, advertising, graphic design and public relations professionals from the Shreveport area.

Ryan Colgin of Bossier City; Jennifer Micinski of Shreveport; Paul Nihart of Galliano and John Sukmann of Gulfport, Miss. won the People’s Choice Award as the result of a vote by all the evening’s attendees that decided which winning entry, both student and professional, was the best.

The recognition came for their corporate identity/packaging design campaign, which involved creating packaging, a logo and a newspaper ad for the Zoo Doo project at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Wash.

Winning Zoo Doo logo

The same campaign also received a special Judges Award, which Gary Hauser, a professor of art at Tech, said signified an unusually high level of conceptual and aesthetic achievement.

In addition, six Gold Addy awards, the organization’s highest achievement in excellence, were presented to 14 graphic design students who teamed to create various entries.

Colgin, Micinski, Nihart and Sukmann took three gold awards for their packaging design and corporate identity campaign and campaign elements.

Their project will be entered in the American Advertising Federation’s 10th District Addys Competition.

There it will compete with entries from Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. The winning entry from that region will move on to national competition.

Other teams that won gold awards were as follows:

–Jonathan Bowden of Downsville, Christie Coyle of Ruston, Amanda Sanchez of Denham Springs and Nathan Swilley of El Dorado, Ark., for their corporate graphic identity campaign.

–Sharon Chong of Malaysia, Ginger McBride of Ruston and Sara Selser of Gretna for their packaging design campaign for a health tea.

Among the gold award winners was a packaging design campaign for a health tea.

–Erin Dwyer of St. Francisville, Brent Hammett of Ruston, and Kayla Smith of Harahan for their packaging design campaign for a health tea.

Four Tech students earned three silver awards.

Rene Robichaux of La Place won for her public service posters campaign, while Dwyer, Hammett and Smith took two silver awards with their special packages for a health tea.

Projects for the groups were selected by Hauser to provide the students with real-life activities. Students contacted people from the business or organization as part of their research.

More information about the Woodland Park Zoo’s Zoo Doo project is available on the Web at http://zoo.org/zoo_info/special/zoodoo.htm.

Written by Eddie Blick