South African Students Go Global with Samsung and Vega Design School

Samsung South Africa announce winners of Galaxy Store competition

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – 19 February, 2020 – Samsung has collaborated with Vega Design School on a competition that gives young South African designers the opportunity to showcase their impressive design skills. The students were invited to create content that will be used as Samsung Galaxy themes that will be loaded on to the Galaxy Store. The winners, Dean Sartor, Kyle Sartor, Mohapi Polo and Liam Cuffley, will now have their artwork made available to an international audience. The aim of the Design Jam competition is to produce unique artwork designed by the creative vision of young Africans.

“We were proud to see the level of work submitted by the winning students and look forward to showcasing their work on a global stage. We believe that the country is rich in natural talent and look forward to promoting these new pioneers and mavericks. Their skills echo our own pursuit of excellence – design that brings the world to life in innovative ways, “says Cambridge Mokanyane, Chief Marketing Officer at Samsung South Africa.

The winners were selected based on an online poll by fellow students as well as the public. Vega selected their second year students as the first group of designers to drive this initiative. Over 400 students across Vega’s 4 campuses (Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban) were involved in the Design Jam competition that took place in 2019. The students worked in groups consisting of 3 to 4 people to design a full theme consisting of wallpapers, icons and Always On displays.

The Vega students had an open ended brief allowing them to create a “local is lekker” approach to themes over a variety of categories: sports, cars, lifestyle, nature, monuments and also illustrative designs. Students were encouraged to use a variety of crafting skills and tools such as photography, traditional and digital illustration and/or typography. The winning designed themes will be available on all Samsung devices ranging from entry level to premium including the A-Series, S-Series and Note devices.