The town of Stratford, Ontario may soon be known for something other than Biebs and the Shakespeare Festival.
That’s because the University of Waterloo’s Stratford campus has concluded its inaugural Christie Design Awards. The student winners were announced on Friday.
The contest is is a result of a partnership between Christie Digital Systems Canada, Inc. (“Christie”) and the University of Waterloo Stratford Campus. Together the two organizations are giving students the chance to explore and learn the capabilities of interactive display.
More than 120 first-year Global Business and Digital Arts (GBDA) students from Stratford campus participated in the competition.
The first place prize of $1500 was awarded to Jessica Barch, Sarah Clare, Connor Ruest, Lauren Noble and Michelle Kostka for their aquatic-themed animation. Kitty Huang,Tani Omorogbe, Andrew Gibson, Brendon Case and Abubakar Guled took home second place and $1000 for their dance-inspired project.
The competition asked students to develop animation content for display in Christie’s headquarters. Specifically they were asked to create dynamic content to fit within five specific display configurations. They ranged from a large-scale, curved projection wall with blended images from two projectors, to a single 70” display cube.
“These Design Awards are an excellent example of how Christie and the University work together to support the ongoing skill set needed for creating content for high resolution displays,” said Christie senior director Dave Muscat. “In judging this competition we were impressed by the creative quality of the student’s ideas. We look forward to continuing to work together in supporting their learning in digital display.”
Christie’s “innovative visual technology solutions play a key role in the University’s mission to intersect technology, business and art under the Faculty of Arts programs.” A first in Canada, the Stratford Campus was designed to “create the next generation of digital media graduates for the jobs of the future.”
“We are excited to share the creative talents of our students with our long standing partner, Christie,” said UW Stratford campus’ Ginny Dybenko. “The focal point of our campus atrium is a 3-storey Christie MicroTiles wall that regularly inspires our students.”