Interview
Winning gold in the student tier, with no production budget
A graduation project made entirely on a borrowed press.
2 min read
Interview · October 9, 2025
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The 2025 student gold went to a project printed on a borrowed press over four weekends. Its maker explains what she would tell somebody entering this year.
Why students have their own tier
Student work is judged against student work, with the same criteria and a different expectation of budget and access. The point is not a consolation category; it is that a brief answered without a production budget is a different brief.
Enrolment is verified before scoring, and a graduate who entered as a student in a cycle that has closed keeps the record as it stood. The archive states what was true at the time.
What tutors ask us most
Whether coursework counts: it does, if the student made it and can supply the working files. Whether a group project can be entered: it can, with every contributor credited, and the credit list is read.
And whether a piece that did not win is worth entering again: not in the same form. The archive is public, and a jury that has seen a project once will read a resubmission as a resubmission.
About this conversation
The conversation was recorded for the programme and edited for length. The full transcript is above the related posts, so nothing said here depends on being able to play the film.
Transcript
The film is edited for length. This is what was said.
On what the brief actually asked
The 2025 student gold went to a project printed on a borrowed press over four weekends. Its maker explains what she would tell somebody entering this year.
The constraint was the useful part. Once it was written down properly, most of the options disappeared on their own and what was left was arguable rather than arbitrary.
On entering
Read the sub-category before the deadline, not after. The group decides which of the four criteria carry weight, and strong work loses every year for being entered where its strengths are not counted.
