PRESS ARCHIVE

Digital Arts, digitalartsonline.co.uk, News, See the Best Button Badge Designs of 2018, by Giacomo Lee, London, UK, 22 November 2018 (English)
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Archive copy of: digitalartsonline.co.uk/...

SEE THE BEST BUTTON BADGE DESIGNS OF 2018, FROM CUTESY DOGS TO FRIDA KAHLO HOMAGES
Check out all the winning designs from Stereohype's annual badge competition, featuring new and promising talent from around the world.
___ For the last fourteen years graphic art label Stereohype has held a button badge competition open to artists the world over, and each year we get some fantastic designs from exciting new talent.
___ 2018's winning designs range from Frida Kahlo-esque badges to cute doggy illustrations, as plucked from 680 accepted entries.
___ These were then whittle down to 60 shortlisted designs, 30 winning designs overall with six overall winners for the single badge and sets of four categories, with one special prize awarded for each. Winning artists include Camille Whitcher, Vuk Babovic and Aranza Serafin, all names to keep an eye out for in 2019.
___ There were 26 judges and judging teams looking at the work of over 200 artists, including our own Neil Bennett of Digital Arts, Stereohype’s parent company design studio FL@33 and winners from last year like Aimee Morris and Jaye Kang.
___ All the winning badges can be purchased here on the Stereohype site, and you can even order them in print and giclee print form, just in time for Christmas.

CAPTIONS
1st prize (single badge)—Judith Cornejo: Judith Cornejo was born in Suresnes, France, and currently lives and works as a freelancer in Budapest, Hungary. She studied Animation at Illyés Művészeti Akadémia and then Graphic Design at Budai Rajziskola, both in Hungary. Most of Judith's projects are related to graphic design with book design being her favourite. She also creates illustrations, character designs and animations. We're not sure if she owns a dog, though.
2nd prize (single badge)—Inês Antunes: Inês Antunes is a young graphic designer from Porto with a passion for illustration. She studied Jewellery in highschool, but later discovered that Communication Design and Multimedia as a Bachelor’s Degree was the way to go. Inês illustrated a text in a children’s book for charity in 2016, and in 2017 she won third place in a Portuguese Contemporary Illustration competition. Her style varies through strange creatures and wiggly figures like this design, taking inspiration from cinema, Asian culture and meta humour. If she was making a list about things she hates, the top item would be the sound of people chewing. But she loves making lists. Inês is currently taking a Master’s Degree in Illustration and Animation, while working as a freelancer.
3rd prize (single badge)—Alemeh Mohammadzadeh: A Frida Kahlo-inspired design here from Alemeh Mohammadzadeh, who was born in Rasht, Iran, in 1987. Alemeh frequently exhibits in art galleries and participates in art competitions. Her work is inspired by 'Gajariye', combining materials and techniques. The use of many colours and Iranian motifs is one of the characteristics of her collection. She usually uses a collection of written or oral stories to start creating.
4th prize (single badge)—Atiya Batts: Atiya Batts is a graphic designer from Raleigh, North Carolina who has a concentration in illustration and logo design. She is also a freelance visual artist who has showcased work at several local art venues including Imurj and Artspace. Atiya has always had an interest in horror from a young age which spanned everything from books to movies to TV shows. Her love of all things dark and macabre has easily translated to her current artwork - and we're guessing she's a fan of bacon and eggs, too. Atiya describes herself primarily a surrealist with a focus on lowbrow art. Her mediums of choice are acrylics, watercolors, and simple ballpoint pen.
5th prize (single badge)—Louise Baskerville: Originally from a tiny rural village in Scotland, surrounded by glorious countryside, Louise 'Lou' Baskerville relocated to the urban metropolis of Singapore with her husband and their miniature schnauzer, Ralph. Lou decided to embrace the change in location with a change in career and began studying Graphic Design with the Interactive Design Institute (University of Hertfordshire). She enjoys exploring mixed media by combining hand drawn work using copics, microns, gouache with digital, with travel throughout much of South East Asia providing much of Lou's inspiration. Louise recently finished writing and illustrating her first children’s picture book, featuring Ralph who has a huge personality, apparently. She also loves walks on the beach, movies, all things Japanese and New York City where, one day, she hopes to be based.
Special Stereohype Prize (single badge)—Camille Whitcher: Camille Whitcher is a London-based children’s book illustrator and author who completed the MA in Children’s Book Illustration in 2016. After graduating her work was chosen by the Cheltenham Illustration Awards 2016 to be included in both the annual as well as the exhibition held at the Wilson Gallery, Cheltenham, as well as at the London Book Fair the following spring. In 2017 she won the inaugural Stratford Literary Festival – Salariya Children’s Picture Book Prize. Her debut picture book, Luna and the Moon Rabbit, was published in 2018 by Scribblers, an imprint of The Salariya Book Company. Camille is certainly no sloth herself, then. The artist predominantly likes to work in pencil, inks, and watercolours, occasionally incorporating a bit of digital colouring. However, she aims to retain a hand drawn/painted look. She also dabbles in a bit of risograph printing whenever she gets the chance as well as vector characters like this sloth badge design. Her favourite themes and narratives to explore are fairytales, folk tales, and animal sidekicks.
1st prize (set of 4)—Aranza Serafin: Aranza 'Lapislazully' Serafin studied design and visual communication at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Her work is focused on digital illustration, illustration with mixed and traditional techniques, embroidery, calligraphy, lettering and rotulismo (a kind of Mexican folk art). She truly believes that art and visual arts are a bridge to different ways of seeing other worlds and contexts. She currently resides in Mexico City.
2nd prize (set of 4)—Josie Kennedy: Another animal set here from Josie Kennedy, who studies communication design at Grays School of Art. Using her simplistic, childlike style of drawing she hopes to create a sense of fun naivety in her designs.
3rd prize (set of 4)—Vuk Babovic: Vuk Babovic is a graphic designer, illustrator and architect living and working in Belgrade and Shenzhen. In his work he is versatile, blending contemporary and simplistic design with stylized, abstract and 3D illustrations.He's drawn to esoteric, abstract, spiritual and exotic subjects, as you can see in these Bang Sangho-like pieces. Under the alias Atelier Moksha he works on festival and event branding as well as start up identities.
4th prize (set of 4)—Agnieszka Majchrzak: Agnieszka Majchrzak is a graphic designer and illustrator from Poland who loves to create on paper unimaginable worlds. Agnieszka likes fantasy, dragons, weird creatures and magic mushrooms (as you can see). Although her works are very colourful, her favourite tools are ink and pen.
5th prize (set of 4)—Ji-Hye Park: Ji-Hye Park aka Yellow Owl is an illustrator from South Korea. In 2017 she majored in Printmaking at Chugye University For The Arts in Seoul, South Korea. Since graduation she's been exploring imaginative drawing and exploring her creations in diverse ways using anything from pencils to ballpoint pens and paint, to Photoshop. We're not sure if she owns a dog either.
Special Stereohype Prize (set of 4)—Alisa Krasnikova: Alisa Krasnikova is a self-taught artist from St. Petersburg, Russia. She likes hot cocoa and dreaming up whimsical creatures and mysterious but cosy places. Secret doors, unexpected meetings, tea parties with talking foxes and long walks under the moon in late October, that sort of thing. For the purpose of bringing it all to life she makes illustrations, paintings and sometimes sculptures, linocuts and whatever seems like a fun way to create something. Also sometimes she makes great pies. (This bio sounds like the most interesting dating profile ever made).

B.I.O. (By Invitation Only) Button Badge Series 18
Selected international designers, illustrators and artists were also invited by Stereohype to submit designs for their B.I.O. (By Invitation Only) series. With almost 80 different designs, the B.I.O. Series 18 badges include designs by Matthew John Oakley, D-Fuse, Andreas Gnass and Maria Nechaeva, who designed these black and white beauties. Picture credits: Seven black and white badges by Maria Nechaeva
___ Some of the B.I.O. badges are being given away as free surprise badges with selected Stereohype T-shirts, and you can purchase them individually or as gift boxes containing seven badges each. We wouldn't mind these cool/ugly ones by Renaud Vigourt for Christmas, thanks. Picture credits: Seven badges by Renaud Vigourt