“Dose of Gratitude,” a social media and print campaign conceived and executed by students and faculty of the USF College of The Arts, is the winner of a silver Telly Award in the category of non-broadcast social impact.
The Telly Awards, founded in 1979 to recognize excellence in broadcast video, now recognizes exceptional video, television and moving images across a variety of screens.
The “Dose of Gratitude” campaign was created to recognize the hard work of health care professionals working during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using tropical animals as characters in their compositions, they created images, animations and signs with messages of socially-distanced interaction, hope and thankfulness. Signs were placed outside of health care facilities in Tampa Bay.
The team was made up of USF animation students Maria Garcell, Amber Newman and Jack Siambanes, as well as USF St. Petersburg campus graphic arts students Tessa Wilson, Alicia Boyd and Emily Butler, all of whom graduated this past spring semester. They were supported by co-chair of the Verbal & Visual Arts Department Jennifer Yucus, USF mass communications instructor Kevin Hawley and USF animation faculty members K-J Mathieson and McArthur Freeman.
The students involved in the project were compensated for their time and earned valuable experience working on a unique, fasted-paced, interdisciplinary project.
The USF graphic arts program, formerly part of the USF’s St. Petersburg campus College of Arts and Sciences, joins the USF College of The Arts as part of the university’s consolidation this summer.