Tuesday, May 3, 2022
By News and Internal Communications
RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS – UTRGV students logged big wins in American Advertising Federation competitions this year at both the local and regional levels, with 90 awards.
In the American Advertising Federation (AAF) District 10 regional competition, four UTRGV graphic design students won five accolades.
The winners from the UTRGV School of Art and Design (SOAD) garnered one silver and four bronze awards:
- Silver: Julieta Reyes-Zumarraga Rangel, senior graphic design major from Mission; Project /Category: Guava Ju UI Kit S14 | App (Mobile or Web-Based)
https://bit.ly/3MdyUkG - Bronze: Julieta Reyes-Zumarraga Rangel, senior graphic design major from Mission; Project/Category: Guava Ju Advertising Campaign | S21 – Consumer Campaign https://bit.ly/3JQucYl
- Bronze: Juan Alonzo, senior graphic design major from Alton; Project /Category: Jellyfish Flower Illustration | S25A – Illustration – Single
https://bit.ly/3OkDUFJ - Bronze: Kyle Gerrard Jacinto, senior graphic design major from Brownsville; Project/Category: Oni-Giri Mobile App | S14 – App (Mobile or Web-Based)
https://bit.ly/37apibq - Bronze: Andres Trejo, senior graphic design major from Monterrey, Mexico; Project/Category: Sony Awards 2022 Poster | S10A - Outdoor Board
https://bit.ly/38LpG0k
The four UTRGV students were the only students to win awards at the District 10 level, which includes Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.
Gold, silver and bronze winners from the American Advertising Federation Rio Grande Valley competition move forward to regional competition. The award-winning students were taught by UTRGV Associate Professor of Graphic Design Ping Xu.
For a complete list of AAF’s District 10 regional winners, visit
https://aaf10.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/2022Notification.pdf.
LOCAL AAF-RGV COMPETITION
UTRGV School of Art and Design students nabbed 15 gold, 20 silver and 15 bronze awards in the local AAF-RGV contest.
The big winner was Kyle Gerrard Jacinto, who swept with nine gold awards and a Best of Show for his Oni-Giri Branding Campaign. To view the winning campaign, click here.
A total of 66 graphic design students submitted their work to the local contest.
“Student achievements in the local and regional competitions were a remarkable statement of the growing strength of the graphic design program at UTRGV,” said Dr. Elizabeth Berger, associate professor and design program coordinator. “The entire UTRGV graphic design faculty are very proud of our students’ participation and achievements in the Rio Grande Valley and District 10 regional ADDY competitions.”
Berger thanked the following UTRGV faculty for their dedication to student success in the program: Xu, Robert Gilbert, associate professor; Clara Choi, assistant professor; Erika Balogh, lecturer II; Corinne Whittemore, lecturer I; Josie Stoleson, part-time lecturer; Monica Lugo, part-time lecturer; and Jeff Stanley, part-time lecturer.
Forty-three UTRGV graphic design and communication students won a total of 85 awards (gold, silver, bronze) in the AAF-RGV competition.
All UTRGV students were recognized at a celebration in April on the UTRGV Edinburg Campus.
UTRGV students submitted 124 entries, making it the largest student competition the American Advertising Federation Rio Grande Valley Chapter has ever had, said Dr. Kimberly Selber, associate professor and graduate program coordinator in the UTRGV Department of Communication. Selber also chairs the student and professional competitions for the AAF-RGV.
“This makes our chapter student competition one of the, if not the, largest in the nation,” she said.
To be eligible to compete, entrants must be or have been a student at an accredited university or college between Jan. 1-Dec. 31, 2021. Work entered must have been created during that time.
ABOUT THE AAF AWARDS
The American Advertising Awards is the advertising industry’s largest and most representative competition, attracting more than 40,000 entries every year in local AAF Ad Club competitions. The mission of the American Advertising Awards competition is to recognize and reward the creative spirit of excellence in the art of advertising.
ABOUT UTRGV
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) was created by the Texas Legislature in 2013 as the first major public university of the 21st century in Texas. This transformative initiative provided the opportunity to expand educational opportunities in the Rio Grande Valley, including a new School of Medicine, and made it possible for residents of the region to benefit from the Permanent University Fund – a public endowment contributing support to the University of Texas System and other institutions.
UTRGV has campuses and off-campus research and teaching sites throughout the Rio Grande Valley including in Boca Chica Beach, Brownsville (formerly The University of Texas at Brownsville campus), Edinburg (formerly The University of Texas-Pan American campus), Harlingen, McAllen, Port Isabel, Rio Grande City, and South Padre Island. UTRGV, a comprehensive academic institution, enrolled its first class in the fall of 2015, and the School of Medicine welcomed its first class in the summer of 2016.