In her seminar work, Oberdingerin Amy Grindau designed her own magazine called “UNTITLED”, which is intended primarily to appeal to young adults.
And now she has won first prize in a large competition organized by the Bavarian Ministry of Culture with hundreds of participants.
Oberding – Being able to express yourself creatively and independently at school is not always easy.
But that is exactly what the prospective high school graduate Amy Grindau from the Korbinian-Aigner-Gymnasium Erding put into practice in the W seminar in the subject of art.
In her seminar work, the woman from Oberding designed her own magazine called "UNTITLED", which is intended primarily to appeal to young adults.
And now she has won first prize in a large competition organized by the Bavarian Ministry of Education with hundreds of participants.
Of course, the 19-year-old was very happy, especially since every beginning was difficult for her too: “At the beginning of the course I had so many different ideas and didn’t know how to reconcile them all.
Then we thought: A magazine would be good to be able to bring in all my ideas.” It was her seminar supervisor who gave her the idea to take part in the cross-media competition: “At the time I wasn’t even finished, and it was already just before the deadline.
I definitely wanted to take part, but I had to shorten the magazine a bit for the competition.” In the end, the magazine ran to 32 pages.
The creative competition for digital media in Bavaria is organized once a year on the initiative of the ministry in cooperation with the Landesarbeitsgemeinschaft Neue Medien eV and the Bayerischer Rundfunk.
This time, 460 students from all over Bavaria took part with almost 70 contributions.
Various topics were discussed in terms of content.
"The idea behind it was to create a series in which all generic terms begin with the English prefix 'un'." Grindau transferred this to the magazine and thus always assigned two terms, one meaning positive and the other meaning negative, six selected generic terms.
An example of this are the terms "common" and "uncommon".
The jury also gave her special praise for this selection.
The student showed atypical, just unusual make-up, which does not necessarily correspond to the common ideals of beauty in society.
“The magazine always reflects two sides of the coin and is an incentive not always to see the negative, but also to see the positive.
Because both sides play a big role in our lives”,
The student was very happy about the positive feedback.
“I got an email the day before the holidays that I had won something.
But I didn't know which place or what exactly," says Grindau with a smile.
The award ceremony took place in a Bavarian Radio studio in Munich, and the certificates were presented by Bayern3 presenter Sebastian Schaffstein.
Among the invited guests was the Minister of Education, Michael Piazolo.
“The moment I was called onto the stage was very exciting.
Only then was I told that I had won first prize in the Photo Graphic Layout category.
I was pretty proud of that,” says Grindau.
In addition to the serious examination of the content, the jury also praised the graphic value of the work.
The personal touch that Grindau had incorporated by depicting herself in photographs was rated as particularly courageous and successful.
As a result of the prize, the student was able to complete workshops at BR.
Furthermore, her magazine has already been included in the AAP (Archive Artist Publications), an archive full of artist books.
"She can be really proud of that and of her overall achievement," says her teacher Margrit Hohenberger, who oversees Grindau's W seminar in art.
The student has also gained practical experience in design alongside the competition.
Over the past two years, she has designed various posters and flyers for her school, including for the 2022 summer festival and the art exhibitions at her seminar.
Another recent project was the design of a poster for the Niederding fire brigade's Shrove Monday ball.
She is also a member there.
She is also involved in the planning of campaigns such as the summer festival or Christmas bazaar, for which she has already designed flyers, tickets and posters.
For graphics and design jobs, interested parties can contact Amy Grindau by email at amiiryyy@gmail.com or on Instagram under the abbreviation @amiiryyy.
Luke Christofori