BA Illustration student Olivia Heseltine wins RSA Student Design Award 2022

BA (Hons) Illustration student Olivia Heseltine has won the RSA Student Design Awards: Moving Pictures 2022.

This category asked creatives to conceive and produce an animation to accompany a piece of supplied audio.

Olivia’s project, ‘Ambitious Cities’, explores how we can assist our cities in levelling up to nature’s generosity.

The video and poster are Olivia’s original entries to the competition, which she has since extended to advertising using traditional and digital methods.

Olivia Heseltine

Ambitious Cities

‘Ambitious Cities’ is a hand-drawn animation that uses playful elements to educate people on themes of sustainable living and respecting the environment. Flying from tall city buildings to wildland habitats, Olivia uses a soft tonal colour pallette to draw focus to key messages in the animation.

“The intention of my animation was to inspire young people to make small changes to the way that they live in order to create a better future for the planet,” said Olivia.

“For example, buying vintage clothing as opposed to fast fashion, travelling using sustainable methods of transport, and consuming organic food/using food refill stores to reduce packaging and food waste,” she said.

“I want to urge viewers to question complex social challenges.”

Olivia Heseltine

After submitting her initial entry, and a subsequent interview with RSA, Olivia moved on to create gifs for bike hire company Beryl. In addition to this, she created further advertising material for shops, bus stops and TFL stations.

Olivia wins The Collaborative Partners Award of £2,000 and the RSA Events Staff Choice Award of £500. You can view more of Olivia’s work on her website and Instagram.