FADA 2014 Student Exhibition Favourites

Last week I went to the opening of UJ's Faculty of Art and Design 2014 student exhibition. The plan was to check out the third and fourth year graphic design students for cool young illustrators that I could stalk on Behance later, but design dorkitude reared its ugly head... so here are ALL my favourites. A lot of these dudes are probably in the job market now too, so hit them up!

(Apologies for the potato quality photographs. I'll get it together for the next one.)

Conor Fathe-Aazam

In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that I do know this dude from work IRL, but that doesn't make his work any less cool. I really enjoyed the character work and pattern design on his Wild West-inspired packaging.

You can see more of Conor's work here.

Wade Moonsamy

Wade is another student I know through work - I really like his commitment to clean, beautifully laid out type, and the subtle use of pattern in his packaging work.

You can see more of Wade's work here.

Brittany Cunningham-Scott

Brittany interned with us for a little while. Her cheese packaging was a winner at this year's Student Gold Pack Awards in Cape Town - you'll see why. I love that she put in the effort to hand-print all her business cards.

No trace of Brittany online, but you can buy fluffy things from her though Hooddy - they will also be at Collective on Saturday the 6th of December.

Kevin Whiteman

Kevin pulled out all the stops for his set up at the exhibition, highlights including a mini fridge that I assume he brought from his house, and a custom-built hand-cranked display table that I was clever enough to not get a photo of, because I was too busy reading the very detailed dossiers he compiled to explain each of his projects.

Kevin's Behance portfolio is here, although he hasn't posted any work yet. Bad Kevin. 

Anneke Hurter

My favourite part of Anneke's exhibition setup was her colourful pattern experiments. He business cards are also wonderful - they look to be individually typewritten, and are packed in a compact, intricately folded envelope that doubles as a one-page portfolio. Gorgeous.

Anneke's Behance portfolio hasn't been populated yet (sies) but let's keep an eye on it.

Evan Symonds

Evan has some really fun type and illustration work under his belt. I didn't photograph his stand (because I am smart), but I did manage to snag one of his cool postcard freebies for the wall by my desk. Aw yiss.

A small selection of Even's other work can be seen here.

Simphiwe Mangole

If Simphiwe's illustration portfolio is already this intimidating at this early stage in the game, I can't wait to see what he's up to in future. This dude has definitely found his voice.

You can keep an eye on Simphiwe's progress here.

Muhammad Gangat

Here's a student designer fostering a healthy relationship with the almighty grid. Muhammad seems to favour geometric shapes and clean lines, which is totally fine by me.

You can see more of his work here.

Jacqui Proenca

Jacqui's work was a pleasant surprise for me at the exhibition, given that I had spent a good chunk of the previous day creeping her work online without even knowing she was a UJ student. I loved her punctuation booklets - her copywriting is stellar as well.

You can check out more of her work here.

Stephanie Rous

Stephanie pretty much won me over in three seconds with her Harry Potter business cards. The way she used her space was also wonderful - her whole section was backed by a hanging wall of her photography and illustration work. So great.

You can see more of Stephanie's work here.

Yolanda Jacobs

I really like Yolanda's bold, monochrome table setup - the combination of messy hand-rendered type and clean lettering in her NSS Clothing branding project was fun and eye-catching. She also wrote some killer copy for her quirky little book on learning to drive. Win.

You can see more of Yolanda's work here.

Yunisha Naicker

My best! Yunisha's "portfolio of failures" knocked it out of the park for me. Such an exciting concept to unpack, and her execution was a treat. She seems to have a genuine love for typography and experimentation.

You can view the rest of Yunisha's work here.