The One Club for Creativity has announced the winners and finalists from eight countries for COLORFUL 2024, an annual grant program related to the global Young Guns 22 competition to help up and coming BIPOC creatives around the world advance their careers.
COLORFUL winners are awarded cash prizes to be used towards a professional dream project of their choosing, and free entry to the YG22 competition.
This year’s first-place winner is Jappy Agoncillo, a New York-based artist and illustrator originally from Manila, who will receive a $3,000 grant. The $2,000 second-place grant went to Jocelyn Chambers, a composer and creative based in Los Angeles.
There were a pair of third-place winners, each receiving $1,000 grants: Kaanchi Chopra, a biodesigner and nature-based artist working in Delhi and New York, and Shantanu Sharma, a Brooklyn-based designer, illustrator, and art director originally from Delhi.
In addition, the following COLORFUL 2024 finalists qualified for free entry in Young Guns 22:
–Tara Anand, illustrator, Mumbai
–Carlos Bocai, designer, New York, NY (originally from Rio de Janeiro)
–Miida Chu, writer, director, Los Angeles (originally from Suzhou, China)
–Kamila Daurenova, commercial & music video editor, Brooklyn (originally from Almaty, Kazakhstan)
–Malik Dupree, photographer, graphic designer, Brooklyn, NY
–Carmel Gatchalian, graphic designer, illustrator, art director, San Diego
–Sajid Guerrero, creative director, Manila
–Lo Harris, multidisciplinary artist, New York
–Arion Kidd-Weeks, writer, director, director of photography, Los Angeles
–Marcie LaCerte, animation director, New York
–Hayley Lim, art director, designer, director, Montréal
–Amanda Lobos, illustrator, designer, Vila Velha, Espírito Santo (Brazil)
–Hermes Miranda, designer, Brasilia
–Anagha Narayanan, type designer, France (originally from India)
–Gonzalo Silva Corcelet, graphic designer, illustrator, Montevideo (Uruguay)
–Suki Violet Su, designer, visual artist, New York (originally from Shenzhen)
–Wenjia Tang, illustrator, Nanjing, China
The COLORFUL grant program, which has no application fee, is open globally to BIPOC creatives who qualify for the club’s prestigious Young Guns competition: age 30 years and under with at least two years of professional creative experience, and never having won Young Guns in the past.
Submissions were reviewed by the 2024 COLORFUL jury–many of whom are past Young Guns winners–made up of Ritesh Gupta designer, founder, Useful School; Kajal, director, photographer; Ahmed Klink, director, partner, cofounder, Sunday Afternoon; Marte, designer, lettering artist; Wael Morcos, graphic designer, type designer; Mischelle Moy, digital artist, photographer (COLORFUL 2023 winner); Leyla T. Rosario, producer; Rich Tu, ECD, partner, Sunday Afternoon; Justen Turner, filmmaker; and Sophia Yeshi, illustrator, designer.
Sunday Afternoon, a female and minority-owned creative studio based in New York, will also once again offer one COLORFUL applicant 12 months of mentorship from its leadership team of Juan Carlos Pagan, Ahmed Klink, Audrie Poole, and Rich Tu. Receiving that honor this year is first-place winner Jappy Agoncillo, who will connect with the team to help support their creative growth and goals.
“The COLORFUL mission hasn’t changed since its inception and the selections were harder than ever,” said Tu. “We had more global entries this year, and I’m confident we could build a world-class agency with just the finalists and winners alone.”
COLORFUL 2024 branding for this year’s program was created by Brooklyn-based freelance designer Ritesh Gupta, who is also founder of Useful School, a pay-what-you-can program for BIPOC designers to improve their practical skills and better navigate the industry.
Review: Director Morgan Neville’s “Piece by Piece”
A movie documentary that uses only Lego pieces might seem an unconventional choice. When that documentary is about renowned musician-producer Pharrell Williams, it's actually sort of on-brand.
"Piece by Piece" is a bright, clever song-filled biopic that pretends it's a behind-the-scenes documentary using small plastic bricks, angles and curves to celebrate an artist known for his quirky soul. It is deep and surreal and often adorable. Is it high concept or low? Like Williams, it's a bit of both.
Director Morgan Neville — who has gotten more and more experimental exploring other celebrity lives like Fred Rogers in "Won't You Be My Neighbor?,""Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain" and "Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in Two Pieces" — this time uses real interviews but masks them under little Lego figurines with animated faces. Call this one a documentary in a million pieces.
The filmmakers try to explain their device — "What if nothing is real? What if life is like a Lego set?" Williams says at the beginning — but it's very tenuous. Just submit and enjoy the ride of a poor kid from Virginia Beach, Virginia, who rose to dominate music and become a creative director at Louis Vuitton.
Williams, by his own admission, is a little detached, a little odd. Music triggers colors in his brain — he has synesthesia, beautifully portrayed here — and it's his forward-looking musical brain that will make him a star, first as part of the producing team The Neptunes and then as an in-demand solo producer and songwriter.
There are highs and lows and then highs again. A verse Williams wrote for "Rump Shaker" by Wreckx-N-Effect when he was making a living selling beats would lead to superstars demanding to work with him and partner... Read More