The annual Applied Arts Student Awards celebrate the next generation of creative talent across high schools, colleges, and universities nationwide and internationally. Recognizing outstanding work across visual communications, design, and advertising, the Awards showcases the future of the creative industry. Winning entries are selected by a panel of industry experts and featured in the Applied Arts Winners Gallery as well as the annual Advertising & Student Awards issue.
This year, three KPU Graphic Design for Marketing (GDMA) Wilson School of Design students earned top honours for their exceptional projects:
Anh Dang – Traces on Sacred Ground
Category: Interactive / Digital Design
About the Project:
Traces on Sacred Ground is an interactive map created to honour Indigenous children who passed away while attending residential schools in Canada and to shed light on the lasting impacts these institutions have had on survivors and their communities. Showing all known residential school locations across Canada, each interactive site shares the names of children who passed away and includes personal stories of survivors, creating a space to remember and acknowledge the national tragedy that took place on this land.
By placing these stories on a map, the project invites users to remember and honour the lives lost, while acknowledging the national tragedy that took place on this land.
— Anh Dang
Project Link: Traces on Sacred Ground
Priyal Rajput – Parity Tea Company
Category: Packaging Design
About the Project:
Parity Tea Company is a purpose-driven tea brand created to address the gender health gap by combining the daily ritual of tea drinking with advocacy. Born from a deep commitment to health equity, the company donates 25% of its profits to women’s health research. Its packaging is intentionally designed to be retained to encourage conversation and raise awareness about gynaecological health. Formulated to support menstrual wellbeing, each blend transforms an everyday product into a tool for education, visibility, and lasting impact.
Everyone deserves access to the knowledge, care, and support needed to navigate their health with confidence and dignity.
— Priyal Rajput
Website Link: Priyal Rajput Behance
Aman Salimpuri – Tracing Illegal Wildlife Trade
Category: Website Design
About the Project:
Tradelines is an interactive web platform for a fictional non-profit that examines the global illegal wildlife trade not as isolated criminal acts, but as a complex, highly organized system. By mapping targeted species, trafficking routes, and the wildlife-derived products driving demand, the experience connects research, interaction, and structural design to make a dense issue accessible and clear.
I wanted to shift away from urgency and reaction and instead focus on clarity. The goal was to make the system easier to understand, not just something to respond to.
— Aman Salimpuri
Project Link: Tracing Illegal Wildlife Trade
Congratulations to our student winners on this achievement and all their hard work!
Read more about the awards here.
