Minnesota AdFed honors UW-Stout undergraduate with Best in Show award for Red Cedar Trail branding project

A student-designed marketing campaign encouraging people to replace the digital din of contemporary life with the calming sounds of nature along the Red Cedar Trail was honored with the Best in Show for Students award at the annual Minnesota AdFed awards, sponsored by the Advertising Federation of Minnesota on March 5 at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis.

Senior Taylor Sherack, a UW-Stout B.F.A. graphic design and interactive mediamajor from Crosslake, Minnesota, created the wide-ranging campaign, which included magazine layouts and trail signs as well as Snapchat filters and Spotify playlists. The campaign describes the 15-mile all-season trail - which connects Menomonie to the Chippewa River - as an "escape from everyday noise pollution," where the sounds of nature replace the "chaotic clamor of notifications and traffic."

Competition success brings professional exposure

Entering - and often winning - the AdFed competition is an important experience for graphic design students, Professor Nagesh Shinde said.

"This competition gives them exposure to what is happening in the profession," Shinde said. "It is judged by professionals from across the country. It's a great resume-builder for them. When they apply from internships and jobs, it carries a lot of weight."

Sherack attended the event knowing she had won an award but not aware it was Best of Show for Students until she heard her name being announced on stage. "It was a shocking yet fantastic experience," she said.

It was also thrilling and inspiring to have an opportunity to talk to design and advertising industry professionals about her project.

"I think that the event opened me up to a whole new world of design and introduced me to some fantastic designers and firms," Sherack said. "This project itself was a fun introduction into advertising, and I think it will aid me in growing as a designer and be a good starting point to look back on when creating new work for my future!"

Sherack will graduate in May, and after that will intern as a designer for the marketing and creative service team at Allianz Life in Minneapolis.

UW-Stout junior Zoe Smith was also honored by AdFed, receiving a bronze award for a campaign promoting Notion, a customizable productivity app. Smith, a graphic design and interactive media major originally from Otsego, Minnesota, created the integrated campaign for Shinde's advertising design class last semester.

"My strategy was to promote Notion to make people's busy lives easier and find a way to better organize their lives," Smith said. "By positioning Notion as a 'second brain,' this campaign visualizes the shift from chaos to clarity."

MicroWhat?: Student's social awareness campaign on microplastics wins Minnesota AdFed award

This isn't the first time UW-Stout students have been honored at AdFed. Last year, M.F.A. in design student Ashley Jandro created a social awareness campaign focusing on microplastics, for which she received a Student - Integrated Consumer Campaign Silver Pin award. And in 2023, senior Isabel Roberts won Best in Show among student entries for an ad campaign promoting under-desk treadmills.

"We have been consistent in producing very strong advertising portfolios over the years," Shinde said.

International website showcases students' packaging designs

Two other graphic design and interactive media students recently had their work showcased on an international website that publishes high-quality student work. The Packaging of the Worldwebsite highlighted the work of two students from a packaging design class Shinde taught last fall.

UW-Stout junior Grace Dose, a graphic design and interactive media major from Green Isle, Minnesota, aimed to boost the visual appeal of Mama Torrez Salsa, a small, family-owned food brand.

"My main goals with this project were to create a more visually appealing package that tied into the brand's rich history and represented the freshness of product, as well as making a more sustainable solution to the containers they use for their products," Dose said.

The new label design included hand-drawn Mexican tileswith a pallet of two distinct colors for each variety of salsa, as well as square jars to reflect the tile motif.

"I think the most challenging part of this process was making a design full of character and culture, without being cliché," Dose said. "But I think in the end I ended up giving it the touch of culture it needed without being predictable."

Dose added that it was an honor to have her work displayed on Packaging of the World, which highlights designs from China, India, Egypt, Kenya, Spain, Greece and scores of other nations. "Especially being a student, it is such a great way to get my name out in the industry," she added. "It can serve as a starting point for networking, as well as an opportunity for feedback on my work from people already in the industry."

A fellow graphic design and interactive media major, junior Grace Weber of Durand, drew on her family's history to inspire a project showcased on Packaging of the World. Assigned to create beverage packaging and to use a language besides English, Weber tapped into her grandfather's Hungarian heritage and designed packaging and branding for apricot pálinka, a traditional kind of fruit brandy from Hungary.

"I was inspired by Hungarian folk-art styles and motifs, which often include symmetrical botanical illustration, so I created some custom illustrations based on the apricot flavor of my product," Weber said. "The brand I created is called 'BARACKMAG,' which translates roughly to 'apricot pit.' I created a word mark and logo (pulled from the illustration) which are featured prominently on the packaging."

Weber said she aimed to make her designs personal and handmade, to match the product, which is often homemade.

"It's definitely exciting and an honor to have my work published by Packaging of the World!" she added. "There's something uniquely terrifying about sharing your work for anyone to see, but I'm really glad my class was encouraged to do so."

UW-Stout's School of Art & Design, one of the largest public art schools in the Midwest, offers bachelor's degrees in animation and digital media; game design and development-art; graphic design and interactive media; illustration; industrial and product design; interior design; studio art; arts administration and entrepreneurship; fashion design and development; and video production, as well as an M.F.A. in design.

Minnesota AdFed honors UW-Stout undergraduate with Best in Show award for Red Cedar Trail branding project

Inspiring Graduate: Opal Lawrence, B.F.A. Graphic Design & Interactive Media

Student illustrations inspired by holiday songs showcased at Symphony, Dec. 7