In February 2009, Gibson Design Management announced its first annual Student Designer Award to encourage professionalism and excellence in portfolio and resume presentation.  Students who entered could upload their portfolios and resumes via Flickr account and could then encourage their friends and families to vote and leave comments.

We also opened the portfolios to the public for viewing, rating, and comments to bring our student candidates more exposure within the interior design industry.  At the beginning of April, the public vote closed and our panel of 4 judges in the industry took their time to provide professional, constructive reviews and give a final star rating for each award candidate.  Our panel of judges included:

- Mark Cutler, Principal, Mark Cutler Design- Los Angeles, California

- Gail Doby, ASID, Chief Vision Officer, Design Success University- Denver, Colorado

- Alexandra Gibson, CEO, Gibson Design Management- Charlottesville, Virginia

- Judy Pickett, FASID, Principal, Design Lines Ltd.- Raleigh, NC

Our objectives for this award were as follows:

1.  To encourage excellence in portfolio and resume presentation.  This includes graphic presentation as well as excellence in written communication.

2.  To impress the importance of well-presented and professional portfolios to current interior design students to prepare students for the interview process.  This also includes the absence of typos, grammatical errors, and other proofreading mistakes.

3.  To provide interior design students with an opportunity to gain more exposure to the interior design industry and to receive reviews from professionals in the field.

The results were tabulated based 50% on the public vote and 50% on the vote of the panel of judges.

Congratulations to our winners!

1st Place: Mehdi Zerouali – Herzing College, 2009

2nd Place: Charlotte Ray – Eastern Michigan University, 2009

3rd Place: Susan Shaw – New England School of Art & Design, 2009