The South West Design + Digital Student Awards
Industry exposure, recognition from creative leaders, networking opportunities, a portfolio review and some brilliant prizes: The South West Design + Digital Student Awards has it all. Each year, we invite students from across the South West of England and Wales to submit their best work to us, so together, we can showcase what creatives outside London have to offer.
Showcasing what the South West is made of
Powered by P+S, the SWDDS Awards were launched as part of our ongoing campaign to tackle how institutions approach design education.
Over the years, we started to notice a pattern in the design graduates leaving university and entering the job market. Often, they were exceptionally talented - but had zero commercial experience. And that's a problem, because it's a huge part of our job.
We were also frustrated by the lack of culture and creativity funding anywhere west of London, meaning students in our region weren't getting the same leg up into the industry as their peers in the capital. And so, we launched the SWDDS Awards to celebrate local talent and encourage that key creative commercial thinking, too.
Each year, we invite final year university students to apply with their best work to one of three awarding categories, and battle it out for up to £4,000 and a paid internship with us at P+S.
Going virtual for 2020
Even a global pandemic couldn’t stop the South West’s creativity, with almost 200 entries for 2020’s SWDDS Awards – and it didn’t stop us from celebrating local talent, either.
We followed the exact same judgement process as in previous years, but kept things exclusively online. Our judges whittled down the entrants to just 10 finalists, before hosting their face-to-face final interviews over video chat instead of at P+S headquarters.
When it came to announcing the champions, our Winners’ Ceremony may have been virtual, but there was no shortage of excitement. We all came together via video chat once again, to congratulate our finalists’ outstanding work and celebrate our overall winners.
Don’t worry if you missed out – check out our 2020 video here, including the amazing work we received from all our finalists, and announcing this years’ champions!
Three categories
Three winners
And no brief
To make the competition accessible to time-pressured final year students, they have the option of submitting work they've already created - as long as it fits into one of our three categories.
The Graphic Design category, for all things offline, including 2D, 3D, typography and print related.
Digital Design, including online design projects such as animation, web design, video and digital graphic design.
And the Front-End Development category, for completed or in-development work incorporating creative visuals, like websites, online tools, digital games and apps.
As for the brief? There isn't one. But we expect every project to have purpose, commercial value, and market, cultural, or social demand.
The winner of each category is awarded £1,000, with one of our victors chosen as our 'Ultimate Creative Champion', receiving an additional £3,000 and a 3-month paid internship at P+S.
Our 2019 Awards ceremony
