Gracie has 'designs' on logo prize

Gracie and RNN Group CEO Jason showing her designs.

A FORMER graphic design student has won a competition to create a sustainability logo for a higher educational group.

Gracie Firth, who studied at Rotherham College last year, won the contest after impressing judges at RNN Group with her “wonderful” design to support the focus the organisation has on sustainability and green initiatives.

The 18-year-old graphic design student, who specialises in illustration alongside a love of creating logos and poster designs, said: “ RNN Group announced its sustainability brand earlier this year, and asked our students to create a logo to promote sustainability throughout the colleges and I saw this as an opportunity to use my creative skills to design this logo, and help others recognize and understand sustainability.

“The logo design consists of a leaf in four sections.

“Each section is a different colour, which represents each of the four college/university buildings in RNN Group – Rotherham College, Dearne Valley College, North Notts College, and The University Centre Rotherham.

“The reason I decided to choose a leaf shape for my logo is because of the connotations leaves have with nature and the environment.

“Leaves play an important role in the earth's biosphere as they work together to support life in nature and keep plants alive and in my logo, this represents how humans need to work together to make changes and keep the environment and natural habitats alive.

“I hope that my logo can help the college and students to recognise the environmental issues and how we can overcome them.”

Jason Austin, chief executive officer and principal of RNN Group and one of the judges of the competition, said: “We were excited to see the quality and ideas for the new logo in the many entries we received for the competition from our learners, but Gracie’s design, her story and her additional supporting social media posts were a wonderful representation of the sustainability work of the Group.

“RNN Group works hard to operate as sustainability as possibly but we want to continue to do all we can to support with sustainable initiatives for our staff and the group to work towards a more sustainable future.”