Media office

Students and graduates from UCE Birmingham Institute of Art and Design (UCE BIAD) are celebrating success after winning a number of top creative industry awards.

Visual Communication graduates Mikhail Pinto and Richard Morgan fought off stiff competition from art students from across the country to scoop a Direct Marketing Association bursary of £5,000 for new creative graduates.

Creative Director, David Harris, from Lida, part of M&C Saatchi, said: “Mikhail and Richard were far ahead of other graduates we had considered. This was in terms of their obvious talent, their communication skills, their ability to work across different media and the fact that they listened to constructive criticism and were willing to learn.”

And success didn’t stop here for Mikhail and Richard. They have both also won awards from the Designers and Art Directors Association (D&AD) for copywriting (Radio Script) and were Highly Commended for the Viral Media Category. In addition the creative duo also won the £1000 Graeme Robertson Trust/Direct Marketing Association award and an amazing 13 other UCE BIAD students won interviews with top art directors.

UCE BIAD Visual Communication graduates Rob Green and Alex Muelher are also celebrating after being crowned one of the winners ‘Winners in Branding’ for their client, Ted Baker, at this year’s Young Creative Network (YCN) Awards. And Richard Dembovskis has become overall first winner in the Society of Packaging Designers Awards.

BA (Hons) Visual Communication subject leader Clive Colledge said: “These are fantastic results for our students. We’ve had such fantastic compliments from Creative Directors from top agencies across the country for the quality of work that our students produce and the excellent calibre of our graduates. I really can't stress enough the difference that our students and graduates are having on the industry.

“Congratulations to all our winners and also to everyone who worked with them on the way!”