A Notable Node + Magazines for Cars & Children: New Talent Winners & Latest Entries

This week’s round-up of New Talent winning work and new entries come from the ArtCenter College of Design and California State University, Fullerton students, offering fresh, innovative design concepts that bring their projects to life.   

Winning Platinum in last year’s competition, “Node” (above), a brand identity concept for the hospitality service, was designed by Tong Li from the ArtCenter College of Design. The assignment, given by professor Annie Haung, was to create a new branding system that could be expanded across print, digital media, collateral, and spatial and promotional design. As their approach to the project, Li wanted to highlight the core idea of a node — “the intersection between travelers and hosts, architecture and travel.” This led to the creation of the project’s modern logo, which acts as the foundation of the brand system. Made using clean veritable lines and bold shapes, it can be expanded to a system that fits different applications and provides a structured and sophisticated layout to present information. With its minimal color palette and geometric elements, Li’s design is reminiscent of earlier styles such as Bauhaus and Scandinavian design, which are both characterized by minimalism and simplicity in the service of form and functionality. 

A new entry is a magazine design from California State University, Fullerton student Derek Daproza. Tasked by his teacher to design a magazine issue centered around something that interests him, Daporza created “Upshift” (above, left) to showcase his love of classic cars and to discuss various aspects and topics surrounding classic car collecting. The goal of the project was to create every aspect of the issue with the exception of the articles themselves, and organize the content to match the professional standard within the industry. Daproza did so by first compiling different articles about classic cars that covered various subculture topics and so each article could have its own artistic identity. Then he created various illustrations and gathered photographs for each article, then organized all these components into various layouts. As for the magazine’s front cover, Daproza created an eclectic design that utilizes both photos and illustrations of classic cars, framed by dynamic yellow, white, and blue lines that give the illusion of motion. 

The other new entry comes from Art Center College of Design student Alice Gonzalez-Trejo, who centered her senior project around creating a Spanish children’s magazine “Aprende Conmigo” (above, right), which explores topics such as animals, food, and nature through the lens of different Hispanic cultures. Gonzalez-Trejo employed her vector illustrations skills in Adobe Illustrator to create different characters to be featured in each issue. Alongside her illustrations, Gonzalez-Trejo also co-wrote a poem inside every issue with her father, who she jokes is “much better at rhyming in Spanish than I am.” Although she has not printed the magazines just yet, Gonzalez-Trejo’s nieces have enjoyed reading through the issues and appreciate her diverse illustrations. 

Click here to see more New Talent 2022 winners. And if you’re interested in submitting your entries to our New Talent 2023 Annual, visit graphis.com to learn more!