Congratulations to Annika McFarlane (IDEA Grad 2022) for winning the 2021 RGD Student Zulu Alpha Kilo Award for Advertising Design with 'Sierra Club BC Social Media Ad Campaign'. Shown above: Jurassic Park ad.

Check out this award-winning student advertising design project!

This was a project done in 3rd year for the mentorship portion of Judy’s class. We all got to choose our own mentor and project; we could literally choose anyone from anywhere. I am really interested in working in the motion and animation industry so this felt like the perfect opportunity to push myself in that direction. It was also the perfect time to ask Lucas Brooking—whose work I had long admired—if he’d be my mentor. He’s a super cool and insanely talented ACD at Buck Sydney. Luckily he said yes and we were off to the races. Big thanks to Lucas for all of the time and advice throughout this project; it was my favourite part of 3rd year.

I went into this project knowing I wanted it to have a social good angle. Nature is something I adore so I decided to focus there. A lot of ads for the environment and conservation are typically pretty dark (and rightfully so). I felt there was an opportunity to come up with something that communicated the importance of conservation while putting a smile on people’s faces. And that’s how I landed on the concept for these ads. I did a tooooone of ideation and this was actually the last idea I had (at 3 am no less. Although when I thought of it at 3 am I couldn’t tell if it was the stupidest idea I’d ever had, or a pretty good one). 

The rest of the process was pretty standard. I mood boarded, storyboarded, illustrated, animated, and eventually had the wonderful Wes McLean do the sound design (thanks Wes)! I had to make an important choice at the beginning of the project and that was to either push myself to focus on the illustration and design side, meaning the animation would have to be simpler or push myself on the animation side, which would allow for more complex animation but would require a simpler style. I knew that I wanted the piece to be conceptually strong, which would likely require more complicated animation, so I decided to go for a simpler style. I actually had a whole mood board built out for a visual direction that I was super excited about but would’ve been way too complex for this project. However, I’ve kept the mood board and am using it for a passion project that I’ve been working on. No work goes to waste, my friends!

Educator Support: Judy Snaydon

About The RGD

Through the Association of Registered Graphic Designers (the RGD), Canadian designers exchange ideas, educate and inspire, set professional standards and build a strong, supportive community dedicated to advocating for the value of design.

Representing over 4,100 design professionals, including firm owners, freelancers, managers, educators and students, the RGD was created in 1996 by an Act of the Ontario Legislature (Bill Pr 56) and is the only graphic design association in North America to have this type of legislation.

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For all the 2020 RGD Awards of Excellence winners, see rgd.ca.

For more on Annika, follow her on Instagram @annikamcfarlane or check out annikamcfarlane.com.