Cardiff School Girl Wins National Design Competition

A school girl from Hywel Dda Primary School in Cardiff has beaten off competition from across the UK to win a national Christmas card design competition. Paris Evans, aged 9, entered a competition ran by education recruitment and training specialist New Directions to design their annual corporate festive card.

The company have run the competition for almost 15 years. The business received over 600 entries for the 2014 competition – making it their biggest year yet.

As well as seeing the card professionally designed and distributed, Hywel Dda Primary School also received a cheque for £500 from New Directions Education. Speaking about one of their pupils winning, Sian Voyce, Headteacher said ‘On behalf of Hywel Dda Primary School and especially Paris, may we thank you very much for your most generous cheque for winning the Christmas card competition. We look forward to spending the prize money on art materials for all the children.

Anna Powell, Senior Account Manager for the New Directions team said ‘I am absolutely delighted that the design by Paris was selected. The school really engaged their children with this initiative and the standard of entries was very high. Our Senior Management Team has the difficult task of judging the anonymous shortlist every year. I am advised it is the most hotly discussed topic in their November senior management meeting!’

This year the 600 plus entries were initially shortlisted by Lucia Jones, a recent Fine Art graduate from Falmouth University. Lucia works for New Directions as part of the Operations Team in Cardiff. Speaking about the job of whittling the entries down to just 20 finalists she said ‘When I was asked to help shortlist I was expecting to see a small pile of drawings. What I was actually faced with was a number of post bags. It was quite a challenge, and we were careful to shortlist a selection of styles for the management team to review. The eventual winner – Paris, was a really creative offering.

The card was professionally finished and printed by Minuteman Press of Bute Street Cardiff and has been delivered to over 1,000 schools and businesses across England and Wales.