Posters by students and curator in the shortlist of the OITA Awards in South Korea

The results of The Oesol International Typography Award, the first annual typographic award, have been announced. Its shortlist includes the students of HSE Art and Design School, St.Petersburg, and Andy Martin, curator.

The 2023 OITA Awards, a typography competition in Ulsan, South Korea, takes place as part of the 13th Oesol Hangeul Hanmadang Festival. Its organizers glorify ‘the power of typography to enchant and inspire.’ A selection of works is going to be displayed at a special exhibition at Ulsan Culture and Arts Center in October 2023. The competition encourages everyone to recognizze the of typographic odyssey value — conceptual integration of letters and images — through poster design.

The works by Anastasia Progatskaya and Kermen Mandzhieva, the second-year students, Elizaveta Prokopyeva, a student of extended education course «Communication Design. Basic Level,» and Andy Martin, the curator of HSE School of Art and Design, have been selected by the inernational jury. Every work from the shortlist will be displayed at the exhibition in Korea and mentioned in the final catalogue.

Andy Martin, Communication Design Profile, curator: ‘Of course, I am very happy and proud of my students! I supervised them working on the posters in their first year, and now these works have been shortlisted along with the ones by famous designers, who we studied in the course of training. It was an open competition, and it had a category of posters on any topic. I see it as a very good motivation to improve oneself in the profession. And, of course, I am twice as happy to join my students on the shortlist.’

Anastasia Progatskaya, Communication Design Profile, second-year student: ‘My poster for a brand of VR headsets was designed upon a workshop on returning to the past. Its «grunge» graphics and texture imitate the defects of machinery printing (as it was in the past), which resonates with the event title. This poster is very special to me: I made it by hand using a stencil, roller and gouache which left a spot on the carpet in my room, so every day I see a reminder of it. Like any person whose work has been distinguished and highly appreciated, I am very happy!’

Kermen Mandzhieva, Communication Design Profile, second-year student: ‘I am very thankful to my curator Andy Martin, who recommended us all to participate in every possible competition. During the holidays, he suggested that I could send my work to a typography competition in South Korea. I decided to give it a try, and sent an application, although I had never participated in such a thing before. My work is a series of posters for Anecbot, the Humor School for robots. Bright letters and numbers resemble of multicolored wires. Altogether, the posters form 2023 — the year of the university's admission campaign. For the competition, I joined all of them in one, as it was difficult to choose a particular poster out of the series. I so excited to see my work on the shortlist! I could never imagine a project of a freshman student to be so highly appreciated. And now I'm just happy to have an opportunity to show my work to people from other countries.’