- Winning prize: £200.00 Love2Shop voucher, plus your design showcased across the University as part of the Graduate Show 2027 promotional campaign
- 2 x Runner-up prizes: £50.00 Love2Shop voucher
- Competition deadline: 31 January 2027
Shape the look of the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries Graduate Show 2027
The Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries’ annual Graduate Show is one of our biggest events of the year, celebrating the creativity and achievements of the Faculty’s graduating students. For this year’s show, we’re inviting students to create the design concept for the event poster and promotional campaign materials.
What’s required?
You’ll need to submit an original design concept that could represent the Graduate Show across promotional materials. This can be submitted as a finished poster, a poster mock-up, or a design concept proposal that communicates your creative idea. You could explore any artistic style or medium, including illustration, photography, animation, sculpture, or something else entirely.
To help spark ideas for your design, we’d encourage you to reflect on your time studying a creative degree at Portsmouth. Think about what’s made the experience memorable, the people you’ve met, and the opportunities you’ve had. Let those experiences guide your design. The final poster should capture the celebratory nature of the Graduate Show, so we’re looking for concepts that feel positive, vibrant, and creative.
The winning entrant will work with the Graduate Show creative team to refine the design, prepare the final poster artwork, and adapt the concept for additional promotional materials.
Elements to consider in your design
The final poster will need to accommodate the following elements and text. If your submission isn’t a finished poster design, you’ll need to demonstrate how your creative concept could accommodate this information:
Promotional text:
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Graduate Show 2027 (‘Grad Show’ or ‘27’ also acceptable)
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Preview Evening: 11 June 2027
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On Display: 14 to 18 June 2027
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Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries
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School of Architecture, Art and Design
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School of Film, Media, and Creative Technologies
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Eldon Building, Southsea, Portsmouth, PO1 2DJ
Space for the University of Portsmouth logo to be added
Who can enter?
Any student currently enrolled on a course in the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries.
How to enter:
Please complete this form by the competition deadline (31 January 2027). Accepted file types include PDF, JPEG, or MP4. If your work is physical, please submit high-quality photographs or video documentation of the piece.
What happens next?
Submissions will be shortlisted by a panel of judges, and the winner will be notified by email.
The winner will be invited to work with the Graduate Show creative team to refine the design and develop the wider promotional materials, including a template for event signage and a digital banner for use in emails. Depending on the concept, we may work together over a number of stages to develop the final materials, with timings to be agreed in collaboration with the winning entrant.
The winning entrant will also be invited to feature in promotional social media content around their winning design (this is optional).
Additional guidance:
Do I need to have skills in graphic design to enter?
Not necessarily. If you’re submitting a non-design piece, such as a photograph or animation, you just need to demonstrate how this could work as a poster and accommodate the required information. The winner will be supported by the Graduate Show’s creative team to develop the final materials.
Do I need to include the university branding in my design?
It is not a requirement to use the university brand colours or elements in your design. You will need to leave space for the university logo to be added to the design later.
What did last year’s design look like?
Last year’s winning design was created by BA Architecture student, Robin Lind. Robin’s concept combined photography, sculpture and graphic design, and he worked with the creative team to bring this to life.
See how the designs came together in the video below.
Our runners-up were students from BA Graphic Design and MSc User Experience Design. There are lots of different methods and approaches you can take for your submission, so don’t be afraid to think creatively and deliver a concept that reflects your creative skills and interests.
See our Graduate Showcase from 2026:
By entering, you’re agreeing to our full Terms & Conditions.