WE'LL EITHER HAVE TO HIRE YOU OR KILL YOU
Since its 2001 inaugural ceremony in Los Angeles, when the ADAA attracted 688 entries from 21 U.S. schools, the competition has grown in scope and prestige. This year saw more than 1,500 entries from schools in 10 countries, and there’s no indication that the upward trajectory will level off next year, when the ADAA will expand to students in Sweden, Italy, The Netherlands, Japan, and Belgium. But for all its growth, the ADAA’s objectives have stayed a steady course. The show was created to deepen Adobe’s relationships with design educators and professionals, drive the adoption and active use of Adobe products, and honor the best in student design.

The latter intent has the corollary benefit of jump-starting a career or two. On the evening of the 2002 ceremony at the Guggenheim, Will Staehle, second-place winner in both illustration and print that year, noticed two gentlemen closely examining his work on display. Staehle’s girlfriend and cheerleader, who had stuffed several leave-behind copies of his portfolio in an oversized handbag, nudged Staehle toward the mustachioed strangers. “They introduced themselves as Matteo Bologna [of Mucca Design] and Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich [of HarperCollins],” says Staehle. “They said they liked my work very much and that they’d either have to hire me or kill me.” Staehle chose life. Under de Cumptich’s direction, Staehle is design manager at HarperCollins, New York. In addition to his work on book covers for highpro file titles, Staehle collaborates with Bologna and de Cumptich on typography projects.

SOPHIE CLEMENTS—TIME-BASED MEDIA
Graduate, Royal College of Art (London)
Master’s in Communications Art and Design

Sophie Clements’ music video for her band’s song “Turn the Tide”—the fruit of a meticulous, seven-month design process—is an exploration of the interplay between sound and imagery. As a filmmaker, she considers the editing process to be as important in establishing rhythm as the music itself. “The edits and the music could be seen as two parts of one rhythm,” she says, “sometimes in synch, sometimes complementary.” Clements can see her career taking several directions, but music videos seem best capable of sating her two passions, music and design. “Pretty much everything I do is about the relationship between sound and image,” she says. “When put together in the right way, the result is so much more than the sum of the two.” Wherever her career takes her—and recently it took her to the set of a project in Croatia, where she gained experience in underwater camera operations—Clements says she’ll continue to collaborate with her band, which, after a year, remains nameless. “We are going to have to address that situation soon,” she says. “Gigs are getting a bit tricky without a name.”

JEFF KRICHMAR—INTERACTIVE DESIGN
The Ringling School of Art and Design

Jeff Krichmar thought that his class assignment to create a six-page website using only the packaging of an existing product was “really kind of blah,” he says, “so I made it harder for myself.” Upending the wholesome message on a box of Colgate toothpaste, Krichmar manipulated its typography and graphics to create a digital world run by superheroic enforcers of good hygiene. “I’m a rule breaker,” says Krichmar, who has his senior year in front of him. “That’s always been something that I’ve done.” When Krichmar found out his rule breaking had earned him a spot in the ADAA, “It threw me off the chair,” he says. “I called everyone and everyone’s grandmother, because it was just too good.”