WKU teacher Huang Yaoyao earns three awards in Design

This Chinese New Year, Huang Yaoyao, a professor of Graphic design at the School of Architecture and Design in Wenzhou Kean University, received a special “New Year gift.” She won three awards in 2018, including awards from the Communication Arts Font Design Annual Competition, the HOW International Design Awards, and Graphis.

Her Logotype Wins CA in design

Communication Arts Design and Advertising Annual Competition is considered one of the significant annual competitions in the global design industry which was established by Communication Arts（CA), California, USA in 1959. Every year international talented and potential designers from all over the world are invited to participate. Six major competition categories of CA cover the whole graphic design field, including design, advertising, illustration, photography, interaction design*, and typography. Huang’s ONCETUDIO Identity stood out among 1653 great productions and won the Communication Arts 2019 Award of Excellence Typography Annual. Furthermore, her artwork will be published in CA magazine in February 2019.

When discussing the inspiration for ONCETUDIO Identity, she said “ONCETUDIO is an idea design studio established by both professor Vincent Duvallon of Architect and Design and me at WKU. This special studio tries to explore different design projects and cross subjects opinions with the goal of improving international communication and cultural introspection. In this case, all the letters in the logo of ONCERUDIO were designed as concentric circles with the aim to stand for the letter “O” in the beginning and end of the name of our studio. Meanwhile, the concentric circles are also a symbol of cooperation and the working concept of the studio. The font itself is based on the modern Helvetica Neue.”

黄瑶瑶获得的ca奖杯，上面刻有作品/设计师/学校机构名字

Winner of How International Design Excellence Award

Acquired the “Bible” in the design area

Apart from the Award in CA, Huang Yaoyao also received an email from HOW International Design Awards which stated that at the end of December 2018, her artwork will be published in a hardcover book named Best Design. This magazine mainly publishes the productions from leading art directors, studios, and creative professionals. Also, the winner will get various dollar discounts from HOW Design, and her monograph will be displayed on the HOW website and she will receive a certificate and Winner’s badge. Her award-winning posters were designed for the Architecture and Design Academy’s Thinking Creatively Conference of 2018.

Huang Yaoyao further won four silver awards from Graphis Inc., including one Annual Post Silver Award and three Font and Application Silver Awards. Surprisingly, one of the award-winning typography works was also completed during a semester in Wenzhou Kean University, with the help of a freshman named Yuan Yichen.

The headquarters of Graphis Inc. of New York is as famous in design as Forbes is in business. Graphis Inc. aims to discover and cultivate talented designers in the fields of advertising, photography, art, and illustration. The design competitions held by Graphis are considered the Bible in design.

She grew up in studios and matured with WKU for the last 5 years

Huang Yaoyao learned how to draw when she was a child. In her memory, she spent all weekends and vocations in the studio from primary school to high school. Even now, she still loves drawing.

Huang Yaoyao attended the School of Design at China Academy of Art in 2005 and majored in Graphic Design. She studied at Berlin University of the Arts from 2009 to 2012 where she obtained a master’s degree in Visual Communication. In May 2013, Huang started her WKU life.

At first, she participated in designing our university. Then she became Teaching Department manager and the director of the Center for Art and Design. Next, she committed to building the School of Architecture, which led to that she was hired as a senior lecturer in the Department of Graphic Design in 2016. Now She is an Assistant Professor. For five years, Huang Yaoyao matured together with WKU.

When Huang Yaoyao talked about winning these awards, she said, ” I thank WKU for providing an open environment, especially for providing a VPN which is vital for teachers and students, so they might connect with the world. I thank the leaders of WKU and Kean for their trust, as well as my partners and the energetic students for their companionship. I believe WKU will become greater and greater.

Written by Fan Chen
Images provided by Huang Yaoyao
Edited by Zhou Yanchen
Translated by Rick Wang & Sean Xu