ROXANE ZARGHAM—PRINT
UCLA Design, Media Arts Department (Los Angeles)

Working with a student team under the direction of professor Rebeca Méndez, Roxane Zargham developed this award-winning identity system for the UCLA Design/Media Arts department, which explores the intersections and divisions between the disciplines of design and media arts. “We were trying to understand whether the department offered a dichotomy or a whole that had two parts,” says Zargham. As the project’s junior designer, Zargham churned out a prodigious three posters a week, making the departmental printer “my best friend and my worst enemy.” It’s been a good year for Zargham. In addition to being featured in Building Design Portfolios (available June 2006, Rockport Publishers), her work was selected for the 365: AIGA Annual Design Competition and will be showcased in design museums and exhibitions nationally. In her senior year, Zargham plans to apply to graduate school, work at Mendez’ studio RMCD, and grow her own newly minted shop, R&R Design.

MICAH GANSKE—DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY
Graduate of Yale University School of Art (New Haven)
Master’s in Painting

“I love games,” says Micah Ganske. “But you can’t look objectively at gaming and not see the silliness as well.” Citing a video game that requires players to show up at 9 a.m.—in the game world—in order to drive around a forklift truck, Ganske is fascinated with the idea that otherwise tedious responsibilities become immediately engaging when put in a game environment. His award-winning digital photography series anticipates a world in which virtual reality stands in for the actual one. Although his creds point more to talent than fortune, the Yale grad says that “in the last two months, I’ve been on a ridiculous lucky streak.” That includes a writeup on his entry in The New York Times. “Painters,” he says, “we don’t really give out a lot of awards, so [the ADAA] was probably the last awards ceremony I’ll go to. But seeing my work in a lobby of the Guggenheim—you can’t beat that, right?”

OLD PEOPLE IN THEIR WAY
That ramp at the Guggenheim provided a functional advantage at the ceremony on July 21, 2005, because the zinging kind of energy you could feel that night needed a path on which to ping up and down. But Adobe added fuel to the fire by taking a few cues from the Academy Awards. For one, tag-team masters of ceremony Bologna and de Cumptich were, by a long shot, more entertaining than either Billy Crystal on a donkey or Jack Palance doing onearmed push-ups. There was also an element of Oscar-night suspense. Unlike in prior ceremonies, when winners were prenotified, no one but the 2005 jury knew which nine students would later have to convince airport security that the unwieldy, A-shaped trophy in their carry-on bag was not intended for use as a weapon. The anticipation kept finalists in a virtually manic state of happy nervousness throughout their visit to New York. And as it happens, students weren’t the only ones who had something to be nervous about. Ceremony host de Cumptich puts it best: “The work is so fresh and young and vibrant. When you see it, you’re just bedazzled, and you’re thinking, ‘My God, when am I going to lose my job?’ These are the people who are going to burst through the gates and take the jobs of all the old people in their way.”