V&A Student Illustrator 2006

The Victoria and Albert Museum is the world's leading museum of art and design, and the V&A Illustration Awards, sponsored by the Enid Linder Foundation, are the premier awards for book and editorial illustration in the UK. Previous award winners include Quentin Blake, Michael Foreman, Ian Pollock, Ralph Steadman, Posy Simmonds and Sara Fanelli.

Winning illustrations are chosen from editorial publications, children's books, adult illustrated books and book covers. The 2005 Awards included a new category for Student Illustrator of the Year. A Student Illustrator of 2005 was selected from five commended winners. The prizes, for unpublished illustration, were offered to students at UK colleges studying illustration at degree level equivalent or above.

There are five commended prizes, with a top prize of £1300. Entries are encouraged from students for book, editorial, packaging or commercial illustration.

Who can Enter?
The award is open to students of illustration who, in March 2006, have reached at least the second year of a course at University level.

The Prize
The purpose of the Student Illustrator prize is to support and promote the development of contemporary illustration in the UK at grassroots level.

Judges prominent in the field of illustration, and including commissioners and educators, will select a long-list and shortlist from the electronic entries. They will later select five commended prize winners from original short-listed artwork. Each winner will receive £300. The Student Illustrator of 2006 will be selected from these five commended winners and will receive an additional £1000, making the top prize £1300.

All five commended winners will also receive a certificate, and their work will be shown in the 2006 V&A Illustration Awards display and on the V&A Illustration Awards website.

How to Enter
- Closing date: Wednesday 22 March 2006

- One entry per student

- Entries must have a clearly defined illustrative brief, which must be described on the competition entry form. The brief is open. Students may submit work set as coursework by their tutors or they may define their own imagined brief

- Entry forms should be submitted in MS Word format, rtf, or text only

- Images and animations should be saved in the format of YourName_imagetitle Images and animations that cannot be identified by student's name will not be considered

- Entries must be submitted electronically.

- Combined total file size must not exceed 3MB

- Illustrations
Image files should be 1024 pixels wide by 768 pixels high
Images should be in RGB colour mode only
File formats must use the extension *.jpg
Executable files, *.exe. and zipped, *.zip, files will not be accepted
At least three images should be submitted. This could be a sequence as for an illustrated book, or could be alternative trials or preparatory work for a single piece such as a commercial illustration

- Animations
Animations must be no longer than 3 minutes in length
QuickTime streaming video is preferred, and this must be in a 'hinted' format at a maximum resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. We will also consider Flash/Shockwave animations at a maximum resolution of 450 x 300 pixels
File formats must use their standard extensions, *.swf, *.qt, *.mov
Executable files, *.exe. and zipped, *.zip, files will not be accepted
Download an entry form here

Conditions of Entry
- One entry per student

- Illustrations and animations must have been unpublished (published work is eligible to enter the other categories of the V&A Illustration Awards)

- Entrants must be prepared, if short-listed, to lend some or all of the original artwork for the last stage of judging, which takes place in August

- Winners must be prepared to lend some or all of the original artwork for the display of winners, which usually runs for several months from December

- Winners will be required to allow reproduction of the artwork for use in web and printed publicity for the Awards

For further information please visit http://www.vam.ac.uk

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