We are delighted to announce that 20 year old, Sophie West from Tiverton, has been awarded a D&Ad Pencil for her ‘Creative Crisis’ board game design, sponsored by Hasbro.

Sophie has just finished the FdA in Graphic Communications with us and will shortly be starting her 3rd top-up year at the University of Plymouth to achieve the full BA Hons Degree in Graphic Design with Typography.

D&Ad Pencils are said to be the most prestigious award a designer could achieve. To put things into perspective, it is the equivalent of winning an Oscar, or a Gold Medal, and this accolade will undoubtedly give Sophie a meteoric career boost.

Lecturer, Nigel Lowe said:

This is a real first for Exeter College and Exeter School of Art and worthy of huge celebration. Sheer hard work, determination and creativity have really paid off for Sophie and we are delighted for her. She will soon be invited to attend the D&Ad New Blood Awards ceremony in London to collect her life-changing prize.”

Sophie decided to enter the awards after being given a brief at college. She says:

They released a you tube video about why you should enter, and they said that even by entering your work gets seen by big shots. I wanted to create something that was for like-minded people in the creative industries and just something funny, so nothing to take too seriously. I find myself having many creative crises so why not make a game about it?”

Read more about Sophie's award-winning idea here.

Sophie will now attend an awards ceremony in London, if she can get over the shock of winning. “I'm not going to believe it I don't think until the ceremony.”

Huge congratulations to Sophie, we look forward to seeing more from her in the future.

If you are interested in studying Graphic Communications with us then read more about the course here or pop along to our Open Event on 19th June to find out more.