Michelle Francis, a graphic design graduate from PJCAD, is the recipient of her school's Best Student Award. The acknowledgement is for overall academic performance for the 2009 to 2010 session. For her final year project, Michelle conceptualised and created ART3, which she says denotes an "urban artspace" for other colleagues to feature their works.  The project entailed her to gather fellow students to display their own works in the space she created for them; In turn, she worked to promote their works via designing promotional items to go with their projects. This included logo applications, stationery, collateral, etc. She also helped them with proposals on how their own space could be utilised for maximum gain, while she used print advertising, posters and direct marketing to push their products further.

 There are three key objectives that Michelle was striving for when she came up with this concept for ART3 ; 

Express- to encourage artists to participate in (non-traditional) urban art & design, where the canvas is the concrete wall

Exhibit-  She hopes the design industry would be able to find  new undiscovered artists, designers and illustrators.

Explore- provide art lovers with a new art viewing experience.

Michelle had injected into her final project a sense of quirkiness with her distinct, inimitable illustrative style of line drawings. Instead of the usual applications on paper, Michelle applied her illustrations across other various surfaces from eco canvas bags, felt, cotton fabric, wood to stone pebbles.

The overall visual impact was one that invited participants and viewers to want to express, exhibit and explore indepth, her ART3 with much fascination. It was indeed an exceptional piece of work that befitted her winning the award.

To get in touch with Michelle, drop her an email at chellefrancis@hotmail.com. You can also view her work at http://blackcotton.deviantart.com,
www.flickr.com/photos/blackcotton and
www.shopiesta.com