Congratulations to the winners of The Student Design Contest
My Home – a visual expression of home through typography & colour
Open to all tertiary design students in New Zealand, this is an exceptional opportunity to practice your design skills in real life – following a job from brief through to print. This year’s theme revolves around typography and colour
Steps
Think about what ‘your home’ means to you. This could be your house, your street, your town, region or country. Or it could be a favourite place, food, music, – whatever makes you think of ‘home’. What does it look like? What is it known for? What are the identifying characterisitics? What does it feel like?
Create a 2–5 word saying that encapsulates ‘your home’ – examples: By the sea, Walk in the sand, Warm chocolate chip cookies, Blue skies & green fields…
Please avoid directly using established ‘plkace’ brand messages (example: ‘The City of Sails’ Auckland or ‘The Garden City’ Christchurch)
Create a visual expression of your saying that represents this, combining type, colour and other created graphics (the wording must appear in full). You can use chosen typefaces, hacked type, or create your own lettering.
The image must be typographic based – but can also use illustration or photography – providing this material is YOUR CREATION. No stock or AI-generated imagery is allowed. If you use photography/raster-based images, please ensure these have a (minimum) effective resolution of 300ppi at the required physical size (see below Mechanical Requirements).
Lastly, choose a BJ Ball paper stock, from the list provided, that enhances your design.
2025 Winners
Winning Entries
The contest is New Zealand only. Winning artwork will feature in the BJ Ball 2026 calendar – There will be 12 winners who will each receive a $150 gift card as well as artist profiles on various social media channels, and in our bi-annual GSM magazine.
Winners:
- Daniélle Heystek – AUT
- Nina Waymouth – Whitecliffe
- Juli Molina – Ara
- Brant Foesther – Whitireia, Weltec
- Claire Lenitua – Ara
- Xiara Rosette – Whitecliffe
- Ben Comfort – Ara
- Jayden Yap – Whitireia, Weltec
- Hikaru Nishikawa – AUT
- Lisa Howden – Ara
- Olivia Kaitlyn Blackwell – Whitecliffe
- Hannah Andrew – Ara
Judges
Laura Cibilich – Co-Founder and Design Director @ RUN Aotearoa
Craig Brown – Managing & Creative Director @ Friday Creative
Carlos Constable – Founder @ One Sunday












