PAVE Announces 2008 Student Design Winners

The Planning and Visual Education Partnership (PAVE) has announced the winners of its 2008 Student Design Competition.

The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York took the top three prizes in both categories, overall store design and visual merchandising, $13,000 in grant money. The winning students in the store design competition were Richard Li, Seung An and Alev Demirel; in the visual category, Ji-In Kang, Ji Hye Lee and Michiko Kato. FIT won another $1500 in honorable mention awards for Hae Ran Kim in store design and Jay Flynn and Kathryn Pero in visual merchandising.

Other honorable mentions included Maryam Alsuweidi of Utah State University (Logan, Utah) and Rupert James Comrie of University College Falmouth (Cornwall, U.K.) in store design and Lauren Hucek of Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) in visual merchandising.

The judging was sponsored by Macy’s Inc. (Cincinnati) in memory of Rudy Javosky, Macy's senior vp of design and construction from 1987 to 2006. Macy's corporate executives developed the design challenges with Eric Feigenbaum, PAVE's vp of education and PAVE's education committee members. Feigenbaum is chair of the visual merchandising department of LIM, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (New York) and VMSD’s New York editor. For the visual merchandising challenge, students were to create an iconic visual style for all key display statements that could be executed in all Macy's stores. Students completing the store design challenge created a shop concept for a new boutique to present seasonal concepts within Macy's cosmetics area.

The judging took place on Nov. 6, 2008, at Macy's corporate marketing offices in New York. There were 269 entries submitted, 196 in the overall store design category and 73 in the visual merchandising category. The judges were: James Bellante, senior vp, visual merchandising, Macy's West (San Francisco); Mark Minichiello, executive vp, visual merchandising, Macy's East (New York); Joe Feczko, executive vp and ceo, Macy's corporate marketing (New York); Randy Pender, group vp, visual merchandising, Macy's corporate marketing; Ramsay Weatherford, operating vp, store planning, Macy's corporate services (Cincinnati); Rodney Fitch, chairman, Fitch (London); Denny Gerdeman, principal, Chute Gerdeman Retail (Columbus, Ohio); Kathleen Jordan, principal, Gensler (New York); and David Kepron, retail store design studio principal, Little (New York).

“There is so much inspiring talent out there today,” said Pender. “For the judges, this competition was an incredible glimpse into the creative depth of this new generation of young designers. We look forward to evaluating ideas that we may be able to bring to life at our stores.”

Details about the design challenges for the competition are available online at www.paveinfo.org. Images of the winning entries will be posted on the site in December.