A DESIGN student at York College has won a coveted national award for an international anti-fur campaign.

Stefanie Scurr, 18, a BTEC national diploma graphic design student at York College, from Hornby, near Helmsley, has been awarded first place in the UK and Ireland region of the Design Against Fur 2008 competition.

Stefanie’s design was unveiled at an exhibition of the winning artworks at the Dreamspace Gallery in central London.

In addition, Richard Brown, a fellow national diploma graphic design student from York College, was commended by the judges.

Stefanie said: “I am really pleased to have won the competition. I was motivated to produce a hard-hitting poster to stop such sickening things happening to animals, just so someone can wear their fur.”

Nicki Brooks, Respect For Animals director, said: “Stefanie’s winning design communicates an important message – the overwhelming majority of people do not want to buy real fur, and retailers need to take this message on board.

“We thank the compassionate retailers who have pledged not to sell real fur – by signing up to our Fur Free Retailers scheme – high street companies such as the Co-operative Group, John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, Topshop, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose.”

A full list of retailers is available at: www.respectforanimals.org.

Judy Ruston, Stefanie’s graphic design tutor at York College, said: “Stefanie successfully completed her national diploma course with distinction.

“She has a sound grounding in typography design skills and computing applications and has produced an excellent piece of work which she created from scratch on the Apple Mac computer.

“Stefanie has progressed on to the BA graphic design course at York College, validated by York St John University.”

Design Against Fur is an annual international student design competition, run in five regions: China, Europe and International, North America, Russia, the UK and Ireland. Now in its sixth year, the competition regularly attracts more than 7,000 entries from over 60 countries. The top UK winning entries will now go forward to be judged alongside the winners from the other Design Against Fur regions for the grand prize.

The same artworks will be also be submitted for the People’s Choice Award, an online public vote. To vote for your favourite winning design, go to www.designagainstfur.com