Image from www.foodandwineaffair.com

Chad Hughes (CCAD, ’10) is the first-place award winner of the art and poster contest held by Columbus Food & Wine Affair Grand Tasting.

Columbus Food & Wine Affair has sponsored an art and poster contest for CCAD senior Advertising and Graphic Design classes five times throughout the event’s eight-year history. When started in 2003, event organizers took notice of how other cities doing similar events incorporated the art community. “We wanted to do something better. We have seen art and wine as a natural connection from day one,” said Greg Maurer, event co-founder.

For the latest competition, three participating CCAD classes learned the history of the event, important elements that should be reflected in their entries, how their designs would be used, requirements for black & white and color usage, and the importance of representing food and wine equally  with an international and contemporary flavor.  Students made presentations using a variety of mediums.

Hughes’ winning artwork will be featured through all elements of the event, which takes place Sept. 24 at Franklin Park Conservatory. In addition to Hughes’ first-place cash prize, CCAD receives $1,250 toward its scholarship fund. Second place and a cash prize went to CCAD student Kaleah Horton with honorable mention awards and cash prizes going to Kaylynn Arnold, Corey Lucius and Jodie Erickson.

Hughes contemplated designing his presentation using computer graphics but eventually decided on photography. “I’ve been taking photos a long time. Using photography, I could bring my design to life,” he said. “Also, when I see things I can use for photo props, I save them. I have a lot of silverware and antique bottles to choose from.”

For additional coverage on Hughes and his winning design go to www.foodandwineaffair.com.  Or, check out his website at www.lifebulbdesign.com.

To see 2010 contest entries from CCAD students and past winning designs click here.

The lost footage: Alex filming James

Hello strangers! It’s been awhile, I missed your face.
I thought you could all use an update on the project, so here it goes!

I’ve got 99 problems but editing ain’t one, hit me!

The giant chocolate bunny at Dylan's Candy Bar.

Who else can say they went on a search for a giant chocolate bunny, today?

Any takers?

That’s what I thought.

Well, we did and it was a sweet adventure in uptown NYC that ended with me thinking that my dentist will be disappointed in my sweet tooth.

Why did I go on this delicious journey? It all started this morning when we visited our friend Rosanne Percivalle, winner of the 2010 Alumni Award for Excellence.

Her work, featured throughout the country, may be familiar to you if you have visited Dylan’s Candy Bar and walked up the candy filled resin steps or had your picture taken with the giant chocolate bunny or perhaps visited the Whole Foods Market on Bowery and looked up at the timeline mural she created and designed.

It's alive! (no, not really)

We stopped by her studio/home/office today and she gave us a full tour of her amazing workspace. Her lifelike sculpture of a giant iguana scared me so bad when I first arrived and thought it was real. Finding out it was art, gave my heart a rest.

We then traveled uptown to Central Park and the amazing Apple store that everyone kept telling us about. It was pretty sweet and was a buzz of activity. After our pit stop at the candy bar and filling our souvenirs with all our favorite types of gummy bears we headed to Times Square.

This was Alex’s first experience in the heart of Manhattan. Needless to say I had to pull him out of the street a couple times as he kept trying to get the perfect money shot, before getting hit by a cab.

We then took a jaunt to meet James Alicea a 1992 graduate of CCAD. After traveling on the fastest ear-popping elevator of my life we arrived at Rocawear.

James Alicea at Rocawear

We were taken to the T-Shirt display room, which had an amazing view of downtown and the Statue of Liberty in the distance. The shirt designs on the wall were kickin’. We soon found out that most were the handy work of James and he even shared his sketches with us of some of the original artwork.

It was  very interesting to find out that James finds himself most nights sleeping on his couch. Why is this? Well, he never makes it to bed because he is so busy keeping up with all of the companies he works with & inspired by his passion for drawing, typography and cultural relevance he sees no need to sleep.

By the time this goes live, James, Alex & I will be enjoying some great food from Camaradas & enjoying the lovely weather here in NYC.