In addition to celebrating the full class of 32 winners from 14 countries (announced last month) during the Young Guns 19 awards ceremony held last night (11/17) in New York, The One Club for Creativity presented additional special recognition to two honorees--Kiyotaka Mizukoshi and Danaé Gosset.

Young Guns 19 winner Mizukoshi, founder and president at Mozu Studios in Tokyo, received the Young Guns 19 Creative Choice Award.  The accolade is the result of a public vote by the global creative community who reviewed work of all YG19 winners and picked the one they believe stands above all others.  

Mizukoshi works in three different fields: stop-motion animation, miniatures, and trick art.  He created his first miniature at the age of 17, and it looked so real that it went viral on social media and was featured on TV.  His stop-motion animation “Out of Order” won the top prize at Digicon6, one of the largest film festivals in Asia.  Mizukoshi hosted his first exhibition this past July and is still touring Japan.

Gosset, an animation director, art director, and designer based in Paris, was presented with the eighth-annual Artist In Residence Award from international artists management agency and Young Guns sponsor Levine/Leavitt.  

The honor is bestowed annually to a newly crowned Young Gun whose body of work truly stands out, as judged by an advisory board of industry professionals across a range of disciplines.  As this year’s winner, Gossert receives a full year of professional development, guidance and mentorship from Levine/Leavitt to help advance her career. She specializes in the craft of mixed-media moving images, and aims to make people feel in different ways through various cross techniques and powerful narratives.  Gosset’s work has been recognized by organizations including the Art Directors Club, Type Directors Club, SXSW, D&AD, Graphis Annual, Indigo Awards and Adobe.

This year’s full class of Young Guns 19 winners consists of:

• Raphaël Ajuelos, creative sound designer, New York/Los Angeles (Sound Design)
• Magnus Atom, multidisciplinary animation director, Saratoga Springs, NY (Animation)
• Andre Bato, director, creative director, Andre Bato Corp., New York (Film)
• Erik Berger Vaage, graphic designer, San Francisco (Graphic Design)
• Douglas Bernardt, director, Stink, São Paulo (Film)
• Dani Choi, Illustrator, Brooklyn (Illustration)
• Roco Corbould, art director, Buenos Aires (Advertising)
• Daukantė, illustratress, Vilnius, Lithuania (Illustration)
• Nate Edwards, filmmaker, Invisible Collective, Houston (Film)
• Julija Fricsone-Gavriss, production designer, Cosmic, Berlin (Film)
• Andzej Gavriss, director, HALAL, Berlin (Film)
• Farhad Ghaderi, cinematographer, director, Vancouver (Film)
• Danaé Gosset, animation director, Paris (Animation)
• Lam Ieong Kun, art director, graphic designer, illustrator, indego design, Macau (Graphic Design)
• Boma Iluma, filmmaker, Los Angeles (Film)
• HeeJae Kim, graphic designer, illustrator, art director, Los Angeles (Graphic Design)
• Kathryn Kvas, creative director, writer, filmmaker, Spotify, New York (Advertising)
• Raxenne Maniquiz, graphic designer, illustrator, Bulacan, Philippines (Illustration)
• Alfred Marroquín, director, New York (Film)
• Kiyotaka Mizukoshi, artist, Mozu Studios, Tokyo (Animation)
• Gabriela Namie, designer, art director, Google, New York (Graphic Design)
• Catherine Prowse, animation director, Model Maker, London (Animation)
• Bouk Ra, type designer, Paris (Typography & Lettering)
• Emily Rhyne, journalist, filmmaker, The New York Times, Brooklyn (Digital)
• Claudia Rubín, graphic designer, The New York Times Magazine, Brooklyn (Graphic Design)
• Alexander Slobzheninov, type and graphic designer, Prague (Typography & Lettering)
• Tina Smith, graphic designer, art director, Denver (Graphic Design)
• Kosuke Takahashi, inventor, communication designer, Dentsu Inc., Tokyo (Industrial & Product Design)
• Ana Cecilia Thompson Motta, design director, Playlab, Inc., Los Angeles (Architecture, Environmental & Interior Design)
• Khyati Trehan, designer, 3D visual artist, New Delhi (Illustration)
• Sean Wang, director, Los Angeles  filmmaker, (Film)
• Vikki Zhang, illustrator, artist, Shanghai (Illustration) 

Young Guns is an international, cross-disciplinary, portfolio-based awards competition that identifies today’s vanguard of young creatives age 30 and under.  Submissions were received from more than 38 countries and judged by a diverse jury of 88 top creatives, nearly half of whom are past YG winners.

This year’s winners were celebrated at the Young Guns 19 Awards party at Sony Hall in New York.  The evening was hosted by Zipeng Zhu, creative director, Dazzle Studios in Brooklyn, and a Young Guns 13 winner.

All Young Guns 19 winners receive a unique version of the iconic Young Guns Cube, designed exclusively for this year’s incoming class, and have their permanent profile page added to the Young Guns website. Winners also receive a complimentary one-year One Club for Creativity membership, permanent membership in the Young Guns network, a chance to be featured in Young Guns events and an assortment of career-boosting opportunities from Young Guns sponsors. 

This year’s YG19 branding and award were designed by Simon Chénier-Gauvreau (YG12), head of design at TUX Creative, Montréal. Themed “Bright Days Await”, the branding draws parallels between the bright future that Young Guns brings to a creative’s career, and that of a post-pandemic world.