Vintage hails ‘astounding’ talent as Kingston Animation Prize winners unveiled

The winners of the Kingston Animation Prize have been revealed, with the judges praising the “the meticulousness of design from conception to execution".

This year, entrants were tasked with creating an animation inspired by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s début novel Chain-Gang All-Stars, which will be published by Vintage in the UK on 13th July.

Jeehee Han, Youjeong Lee and Will Norland split the £1,000 prize, and their animation will form part of an "unmissable and ambitious" marketing and publicity campaign for the book, with highlights including a cover reveal in partnership with Waterstones, a UK-wide author tour including a major London launch event, far-reaching digital advertising, “covetable” POS, and both trade- and consumer-facing competitions.

Harvill Secker will publish a signed Waterstones exclusive edition with an essay by Adjei-Brenyah entitled How the Bounty Hunter Sees. Adjei-Brenyah, who judged the prize alongside Ruth Waldram, Vintage brand director, and Matt Broughton, senior designer at Vintage, said: “Watching the participants in the Kingston Animation Prize was one of the greatest, most humbling honours I’ve ever experienced. The meticulousness of design from conception to execution was astounding, and to see the work translated with such heart was truly beautiful.”

Rachel Lillie of Kingston University said: “It was a privilege to work with such a thought-provoking book. As ever we are incredibly proud of our students for what they have achieved: it is always a huge learning curve, with many creative challenges involved.”

The prize is run annually in a partnership between Kingston University’s undergraduate animation course and Vintage, and all the prize entries can be viewed on the Vintage YouTube channel.