D&AD Student Awards 2010 – Rob Francis leads LCC success at this year’s awards
D&AD announced the winners of their annual student awards last month. The D&AD awards are the indisputable Oscar equivalent of the design world and for many being nominated is recognition enough of their emerging creative talent. Attending the ceremony, held in East London’s Spitalfields Market, hoping to go one step further and scoop one of the coveted yellow pencils was LCC FdA Design for Graphic Communication student Rob Francis:
“Ever since I discovered D&AD about seven years ago I wanted one of those yellow pencils on my shelf.”
Rob, who specialises in moving image, was nominated for his film entitled Project Atlantis – The Disappearing City:
“I came up with the rough idea sat on the bus, which is where many of my ideas seem to pop up for some reason. I wanted to create a story with each element answering a different part of the brief. One key factor was to make the moving image work function in another medium so I created a character that existed in and out of the film on his own website, where people could interact and uncover more of the story.”
“I also wanted to see just how much one person can do when making a film with the technology we have available today. I took on all the jobs required to make the film from writing the screenplay to casting the actors and the cinematography. I even made lunch for the cast. It was an incredibly busy couple of months running around London sourcing locations and rehearsing lines with the actors. I learned a fantastic amount whilst working on this film and dropped myself in at the deep end so that I had to make it work.”
Rob’s hard work certainly paid off and was justly rewarded with an invitation to attend this year’s student awards:
“The awards ceremony had a great atmosphere, possibly down to the free champagne. But in all honesty it was a great afternoon; I got to meet the other nominees in my category, three of whom flew all the way over from Miami, which put me to shame as I walked there from Dalston.”
“I was so happy when my name was called out to win the yellow pencil for 2nd place in the Moving Image category and even happier when I saw they had put my name on it. That made my day!”
Rob’s success has only served to fuel his desire to go on to even bigger and better things:
“It’s given me the confidence to work harder and keep trying new ideas. I will enter again next year, in the hope to add another one to the collection.”
LCC’s success at this year’s D&AD student awards doesn’t stop there. Amongst the other students recognised at this year’s awards with a place ‘in book’ were: BA Graphic and Media Design – Illustration student Charlie Hocking for Brand Communications; BA Graphic and Media Design – Advertising student Yong Ping Loo for Moving Image; and MA Interactive Media students Jeong Hoon Kim, Jumana Al Issawi, Kent Andersen, Nikolaos Antnogiannis, Tom Juneau for Graphic Design – Interactive Design.
You can find more of Rob Francis’ work at his portfolio website: www.iwillcreate.co.uk
Words by Adam Hayes
