Graphic Designer George is a winner in one of the world's top design competitions

A Graphic Design student has been named as one to watch after impressing the judges of one of the world’s leading creative competitions.

George Alborn, from Leicester, was chosen as one of the winning entries for the Design and Art Direction (D&AD) New Blood Awards 2015.



Students had to choose a live brief, set by top companies, and come up with a creative solution. George chose a challenge set by the BBC to find a way of making its content more accessible and appealing to 15 to 24 year olds.

He came up with Short and Sweet, an interactive app for smartphones, iPads and tablets. Users can choose a category they are interested in and see short clips of relevant content – for example, choosing the sport category would bring up footage of the weekend’s best goals.

“I started with the research,” said George. “I knew attention spans were getting shorter, but I didn’t realise quite how short! The average person will spend just eight seconds on a page so I decided to go for short snaps of content.

“The BBC TV content has all half hour programmes, you need to set time aside to watch. This way people can choose what they are interested in.”

Judges loved his idea and now George will be attending the D&AD Awards in July when he will discover which colour D&AD Pencil he has won. All he knows at the moment is that he is one of the winners, but the awards are made on the night.

The top prize is a place on the New Blood Academy while others can apply for a two-week creative bootcamp or paid three-month placements.

George, a former Groby Community College pupil, said: “It’s very exciting, I’ve done design since I was a GCSE pupil so to have this kind of accolade is amazing. I don’t know what award I’ll be getting until the night itself but just to be there is a thrill.”

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Last year’s New Blood Awards received entries from 267 universities and colleges from 36 different countries.

Brian Ashbrooke-Motte, senior lecturer in Graphic Design, said: “This is perhaps our proudest achievement this year. The New Blood award is the holy grail for young designers.”

Tim Lindsay, chief executive of D&AD, said: “New Blood is at the heart of what D&AD is all about.  Our professional awards set the highest possible standards and select a body of work that provides a benchmark of excellence for the global creative community.  

“But the New Blood programme is about the future of our industry - identifying, enabling, nurturing, guiding and inspiring the cream of the next generation of brilliant creative practitioners.”