Through Open Quote Creative, a creative agency organized in the Liberty University Department for Studio & Digital Arts, the students work with customers from start to finish while developing, designing and delivering materials for non -profit organizations. At the beginning of this month, Open Quote Creative was announced as the winner of eight Indigo Design Awards (four silver and four bronze) under a area of other college students from all over the world.
The Indigo Design Awards are an international competition that recognizes the work of experts and students in the field of graphic design, branding and design for social changes. (See all 2025 awards and design examples from Open Quote Creative below.)
Every semester, Open Quote Creative will work with three to five local non-profit customers and create printing and digital materials to promote events, initiatives or their missions as a whole. The students are divided into three teams, whereby each team usually focuses on one or two customers, and some students take on leadership roles such as creative director, Art Director and project manager.
“There is an excellent resume booster to be able to say that they work with real customers,” said Professor Brianna O'Neal, one of three professors who, together with Stacy Cannon and Audra RyGH, act as creative directors from the agency for the agency. “It also improves your portfolios because you not only have concept projects in your portfolios. You have real customer projects. It not only prepares you with your design skills, but also professionally because you learn to talk to customers, to develop letters, to create concepts and to effectively create the delivery for your customers.”
Open Quote Creative is sponsored by the School of Communication & the Arts and financed by the office for sponsored programs and research
By entering the agency's semester to the semester of semesters, they learn how to work together as designers and experts before entering the industry, and O'Neal said that the quality of their work is documented by the numerous awards that the agency has won since the start in 2024.
“We were really impressed by how quickly the students can adapt to new teams and really immerse themselves in the projects,” said O'Neal. “They really build up their communities in their teams and become good friends while working through the process, and this is very helpful, since the process is sometimes a challenge. Because of their teamwork and their ability to enter into work, they have produced excellent (materials) that are recognized by customers and the design professionals that serve as judges for these awards.”
2025 Indigo Design Awards
- Commental materials: Silver – meals on wheels advertising and finding materials
- Integrated graphic design category: silver – parade of the playhouses
- Service category: Silver-Randolph Memorial Baptist Church branding and collateral
- Commental materials: Silver – Elkton Volunteer Fire Company: 100 years of anniversary materials
- Advertising material category: bronze – file advertising materials
- Sortomational materialis category: bronze – Casa (judicial sign appointed special lawyer program): Retro Rewind event
- Category “Magazin & Zeitung Design”: Bronze – The Bow of Central Virginia: Impact Report
- Category “Magazin & Zeitung Design
In 2024, Open Quote received a Gold Indigo Design Award for Branding, a Graphic Design USA Awards for your social media and digital work as well as three -Design -Association Association Awards for the University & College Designer Association for “Parade of Playhouses” with Rush Homes, Freedom 4/24's “40 million campaign” Open quote creative agency branding.
