‘Futuristic workshop’ wins this year’s Imagine RIT poster contest

A futurist 3D-modeled poster featuring a whimsical, futuristic workshop was selected as the winning entry in this year’s Imagine RIT: Creativity and Innovation Festival poster contest.

Visitors can receive a free copy of the poster during the festival on April 27, 2024 while supplies last.

Jessica Hall, a second-year new media design major from Kennett Square, Pa., won $500 in Tiger Bucks as the winning artist. Nearly 50 entries were submitted, with about 10,000 votes cast. Three finalists were chosen, with the winning poster selected by RIT President David Munson.

“I had never even touched 3D software before last semester but, once I started, I really loved it,” she said. “I wanted to do something that was like realism, but whimsical with a sci-fi futuristic vibe that RIT has, and I wanted it to look like a hologram.”

Hall said her design, which also gives a nod to a wide variety of different fields of studies and student activities, took her a month to complete.

“I put a lot of time into this, and I’m really happy with how it turned out,” she said. “I used a compilation of things I had learned over the semester, and I wanted to play with something that looked realistic but, in reality, would be nonsensical with cameras, pencils, wires, computer microchips, a paper airplane—all types of things.”

In the poster, a computer display screen reads: “Now loading: The SHED.”

“I wanted to pay tribute to that [Student Hall for Exploration and Development] because it was completed this year,” she said.

Hall said she and a group of friends stared at a whiteboard to brainstorm, with ideas flowing from words and elaborate mind maps they came up with. She was inspired by Doctor Who. “They always have interesting lights and things.”

She said she thought she had a chance of winning, “but I also knew a lot of friends who submitted a lot of good entries,” she said. “It was really fun coming up with ideas.”

Hall is on the RIT Women’s Rowing team and serves as its recruitment chair. She also is the Honors Program delegate for the College of Art and Design and is a Performing Arts Scholar, taking piano lessons at RIT.

She attended the Imagine festival for the first time last year. “We were supposed to be out of town at a race, but it was canceled, so I got to go to Imagine. It was really cool and I wanted to see everything.”

Indeed, the festival, since its inception in 2008, is RIT’s largest annual event. Tens of thousands of people from the community are welcomed to campus that day to enjoy more than 350 exhibits of technology, art, design, robotics, performing arts, engineering, research, clubs, and more. The event is campus wide and is free and open to the public.