#OneShow2017: Handpicking the best of the Young Ones
South Africans featured strongly on this year’s One Show Young Ones student competition panel. These included: Alex Sudheim, senior lecturer copywriter and art direction at Vega School Cape Town; Carmen Schaefer, lecturer at Red & Yellow Cape Town; Nathan Reddy, chief creative officer and founder of Grid WW Johannesburg; Naretha Pretorius, principal of creative brand communication at Vega School Durban; and Wessie van der Westhuizen, technology development manager/lecturer at Stellenbosch Academy.
That’s quite a mouthful, and understandably so as the Young Ones’ stakes have been raised considerably this year.
Winners’ work will be published in the One Show Annual and on the Young Ones Online Awards Archive and will receive either a One Show Pencil or an award of excellence for their portfolio at the Young Ones Education Festival and Awards Ceremony, part of One Show Creative Week New York.
That’s impressive for students who’ve not yet officially entered the world of work, but makes sense as the annual Young Ones Competition identifies the most promising up-and-coming international creative talent, celebrated during Creative Week at The Young Ones Education Festival, with the Young Ones Awards Ceremony taking place tomorrow night – Tuesday, 9 May – and recognising the 2017 finalists from their international student competition.
Portfolio judging was all completed online, by 11 April and the winners have been announced as follows: Young Ones’ Portfolio Winners.
Explaining their nominations to this year’s juries, Reddy explains that the One Show has a particular vested interest in South Africa as Kevin Swanepoel, New York-based CEO of the One Club and One Show Awards, is a South African at heart who has always kept a link to what's happening here. Reddy has judged the professional show a few times before as they do a rotating system. But whether it's the professional or young creatives’ category at hand, he says it's always an honour to judge the show.
Schaefer, on the other hand, was recommended to the One Show by the lecturers at the Vega School – her ex-colleagues. The One Show contacted her in December to be on the jury for the Student Portfolio category, and the rest is history! She explains that the portfolio jury consists of a mix of experts from the international advertising and design industry as well as from various educational institutions, also from all over the world. Students were asked to select four to six of their best pieces and enter them as a portfolio. There were various portfolio categories, such as advertising, graphic design, illustration, photography and product design, so she expected quite specialised portfolios.
Van der Westhuizen adds that it’s a great honour to be asked to join the adjudication panel for the Young Ones Portfolio Competition, especially as this is a new initiative of the One Show. He explains that it happened as follows: “Another member of the Young Ones brief jury suggested my name for the panel, I received an official invitation, which I accepted, and boom, judge jury and executioner!”
Different global creative academic curricula
Sudheim has a similar story to share, explaining that his fellow juror Naretha Pretorius, then-programme manager of creative brand communication at Vega and now principal of Vega Durban, had put considerable effort into negotiating with the One Show to reconsider their deadlines for the Young Ones, as the student element of the competition. She specifically wanted them to take into consideration the chronological differences between the academic curricula in the northern and southern hemispheres.
This she successfully achieved. As a result, Pretorius was invited to be on the jury and the invitation was extended to Sudheim, too.
Pretorius confirms that she was invited to join the One Show education forum in 2016, after meeting CEO Kevin Swanepoel during a visit to South Africa. The One Show then approached her to consider the jury opportunity in 2017, which she gladly embraced.
Keep an eye out for more on their judging journey, as well as the importance of celebrating stand-out creativity in the youth, throughout the week ahead!
You can follow The One Club on Twitter and click through to our One Show special section for the latest updates!
About Leigh Andrews
Leigh Andrews AKA the #MilkshakeQueen, is former Editor-in-Chief: Marketing & Media at Bizcommunity.com, with a passion for issues of diversity, inclusion and equality, and of course, gourmet food and drinks! She can be reached on Twitter at @Leigh_Andrews.
