MEDIA RELEASE 11 JUNE, 2004	MEDIA EMBARGO 16 JUNE, 2004

Australian Design Against Fur! Winners Announced

Humane Society International (HSI) is very pleased to announce the Australian winner of the second annual international Design Against Fur! poster competition.  Design students were asked to design a poster to raise awareness of the increase of fur trim in fashion with prize money and a trip to Europe for the overall winner.

The Australian winner is Fran Johnson-Cash from the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Brisbane.   Fran was born and grew up on the Sunshine Coast hinterland.  She finished high school graduating as the “Most Outstanding Visual Arts Student”, and is now in her final year of studying for a Bachelor of Design Studies majoring in graphic design.

Second place went to Kari Hansen an international student who has just finished a Bachelor of Photomedia and Graphic Design at Edith Cowan University, Western Australia, Kari is originally from a small village in Norway.  Third prize went to Shiho Watanabe also from Edith Cowan University, Western Australia.  Shiho is from Japan and is studying for a Bachelor of Communications degree, majoring in Photomedia and Graphic Design.  The design and graphics stream within the School of Contemporary Arts at Edith Cowan University is a very new area of study for the University.  Design and Graphics has grown from a cohort of forty elective students to it's present popularity of over 300 students from all over the world, in under three years.

The winner Fran Johnson-Cash will be presented with her $1000 prize by Verna Simpson, Director of Humane Society International on Wednesday 16 June, 2pm at the Liveworm Studio, Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, 226 Grey St, Southbank, Brisbane.

Verna Simpson from HSI believes "We are hoping our Design Against Fur competition helped raise awareness that a little bit of fur is just as deadly as the fur required for an entire coat.  Fur is fatal - not matter how it's cut."

You can view the winning entries in the Australia & Asia Pacific section of Design Against Fur on inFURmation.com or at www.hsi.org.au. In the posters you'll see the amazing creativity and passion for animals that the competition ignited. It's this passion that will carry the message forward and make this world a better one for animals. 

This year the Design Against Fur! poster competition message focused on the problem of FUR TRIM. More animals are used each year for fur trim than for fur coats!  Designers and retailers are selling more fur-trimmed items then ever. 

The competition was open to: school/college/uni students in a fashion, fine art, advertising, marketing, communication, multimedia or graphic design courses.  There was a prize of $1000 for the Australian winner, second place $500 and third place $250.  HSI will also be giving 25 certificates of recognition to entrants.

The Australian winner, plus second and third prize winners will be judged along with the finalists from Europe, America, United Kingdom & Ireland and Canada to be in the running to be the overall international winner, who will receive $5,000 euro and a trip to Europe, for an awards celebration.  The winner’s campaign will qualify for use by the Fur Free Alliance internationally.

One of the Australian judges was well respected artist Wendy Sharpe she commented “The Design Against Fur! posters had a wide range of imaginative ideas and approaches.  It was difficult to choose.  I did select Fran’s design as I thought her design had an immediacy that attracts attention and clearly conveys the contradiction that beauty can be achieved by the slaughter of animals.”

Reg Mombassa also kindly donated his time to judge this competition stating, “You don’t need fur to be foxy combines all the elements of the brief with an interestingly icy image.  When there’s so much fake fur available it seems pointlessly cruel to go on killing real animals for the sake of a bit of trim on your car-coat.”

Michael Lenehan, Art Curator at the ArtHouse Hotel also on the judging panel thought, “The Design Against Fur! posters offered a great range of ideas, images and emotions conveyed in no uncertain terms the barbarity of fur trim in fashion.  Congratulations to all the participants.”and David Terrazas, Director of the ING GROUP another judge thought the Design Against Fur! competition was a, “Great cause; excellent to start building awareness in the student community.”

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