A HEREFORD graduate has received a prestigious award after making designs for soft drink brand J2O, as part of a Europe-wide competition.

As part of her Graphic and Media Design degree studies Gemma Goode took part in the You Can Now (YCN) awards during her final year of studies, which she finished four months ago.

The First Class BA Hons graduate at Hereford College of Arts (HCA) tweeted some of her designs during the initial stages and received some positive feedback from J2O, which encouraged her to develop them further.

As a result, of her final design for the soft drink brand she won a commendation from YCN awards and was invited to attend the prestigious ceremony at the Barbican Centre in London.

“I was really proud to win the award,” said Gemma. “The Barbican Centre was beautiful and a fantastic setting for the ceremony. I had a fantastic time and met some great people, and it marked huge achievements for me – professionally and personally.

"Working on the project provided me with great experience; the chance to work on live briefs and understand how the industry works was one of the real selling points of studying at HCA.”

The trip to London was also a huge milestone for Gemma as prior to studying her degree she had suffered from Agoraphobia.

Since winning the award, the graduate has worked on the branding and literature for the BBC Arabic Film Festival in London, making designs for their festival guide, posters, invitations and certificates.

“I was initially awarded the work for the festival guides following my successful proposal, which was submitted into a very competitive application process,” added Gemma. “They really liked the other examples of my work that they saw, and were really happy with the guides, and I was asked to design the posters and additional literature. It was a joy to work on!”

Gemma, who grew up in and lives in Hereford, has also seen her t-shirt designs chosen to go on sale in store and online at clothes store, FIT.

She was also chosen to work with dan le sac and Scroobius Pip, designing the typography for Pip’s body for their ‘You Will See Me’ video – which went on to win Independent Video of the Year at the AIM Music Awards.

Gemma was awarded the Brian Hatton Award for most promising higher education student at her graduation ceremony at Hereford Cathedral.

Although her passion is typography, the graduate works on all areas of graphic design and has set up her own business, Wolf & Jewel.

To find out more about her work, visit wolfandjewel.com.