Contact: Margaret Kovar
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Mississippi State senior Paige McDonnell is the 2012 winner of the annual Brian Brown Scholarship given by the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington, D.C.
An art/graphic design major, the university President's List Scholar from Biloxi was chosen by judges from across the nation based on the high quality of her work.
To be eligible for the award, she entered the Real Show 2012, an annual competition giving university and college students from around the nation the opportunity to solve real-life communication design problems. This year, 284 entries were received from 11 U.S. schools.
McDonnell's entry was among only 26 selected by the judges to be featured at the club's DC Design Center spring exhibition. Receiving the best-in-show honor, it was a visual illustration for a play about the World War II German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl.
McDonnell said she was overwhelmed, both by having been chosen to have her work shown and for the $1,200 scholarship.
"It felt somewhat unreal finding out the results; it was pretty fantastic, honestly," McDonnell said.
Brian Brown was a founding member of the ADCMW. After his 1958 death from cancer, the organization established the scholarship fund as a permanent memorial. Additional information about the ADCMW and its scholarship program are available at www.adcmw.org/.
For more information about Mississippi State, go to www.msstate.edu.