In addition to celebrating the full class of 29 winners from eight countries at last night’s Young Guns 21 awards ceremony in New York, The One Club for Creativity presented additional special recognition to two honorees.
Mischelle Moy received the Young Guns 21 Creative Choice Award. The accolade is the result of a public vote by the global creative community who reviewed work of all YG21 winners and picked the one they believe stands above all others.
Moy, who is also this year’s winner of The One Club COLORFUL grant program for BIPOC creatives, is a Brooklyn-born-and-based digital artist and product photographer. Also skilled in set design and postproduction, she has worked with prominent brands such as Apple and Adobe, as well as local small businesses including Wing on Wo, Cirque Colors, and Umamicart.
Suzanne Saroff, a photographer and director also based in Brooklyn, was presented with this year’s Artist In Residence Award from international artists management agency and Young Guns sponsor Levine/Leavitt.
The honor is bestowed on the newly crowned Young Gun whose body of work stands out, as judged by an advisory board of industry professionals across a range of disciplines. As this year’s winner, Saroff will receive a full year of professional development, guidance and mentorship from Levine/Leavitt to help advance her career.
Saroff’s body of work is still-life focused. Using a multimedia approach and experimentation with new ways to work with light and composition, she often builds technical sets in her studio and then breaks commonly held creative rules. Her commercial clients include Prada, Gucci, Glossier, Bvlgari, NARS, Benjamin Moore, Tin Building, Clinique, and Haus Labs, and her photographs have also been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and many others.
“As we are honored to celebrate our ninth year with the Young Guns, we’re thrilled to have Suzanne Saroff join us as the Levine/Leavitt Artist in Residence,” said Jeff Levine, co-founder. “Suzanne’s photography captures the extraordinary in the everyday, with a style that’s both bold and nuanced. We’re excited to see how her fresh perspective will inspire all of us in the coming year.”
Young Guns is the industry’s only international, cross-disciplinary, portfolio-based awards competition that identifies today’s vanguard of young creatives age 30 and under.
This year’s entries were judged by a diverse jury of 100 top creatives from 47 countries, many of whom are past YG winners.
This year’s winners were celebrated last night at a special ceremony and party at New York’s Sony Hall hosted by famed designer, author, educator, and “Design Matters” podcaster Debbie Millman. The full lineup of winners was unveiled earlier this month and reported on here in SHOOT.
All Young Guns winners receive a unique version of the iconic Young Guns Cube, designed exclusively for this year’s incoming class, and have their permanent profile page added to the Young Guns website. Winners also get a complimentary one-year One Club for Creativity membership, permanent membership in the Young Guns network, and a chance to be featured in Young Guns events.
Program branding and design of the YG Cube award itself is reimagined each year by a past Young Gun winner. This year’s YG21 branding was created by Zuzanna Rogatty (YG18), senior designer at COLLINS New York.
