Melody Vecera

A poster promoting a transatlantic conference at the University of Houston-Victoria recently won a prestigious advertising award at a regional American Advertising Federation convention.

Melody Vecera, creative services manager in the UHV Marketing Department, won a bronze district ADDY award for creating a transatlantic conference poster titled “We Called for Workers but People Came.” Vecera said she was humbled by the honor.

“I feel fortunate that something I created was noticed and recognized by the esteemed professionals judging the competition,” she said.

The awards were announced last week at the AAF District 10 Convention in Tulsa, Okla. The district awards are open to entries from Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

The poster promoted a UHV conference held in November that launched a conversation about the migration, globalization and integration that German Muslims and Mexican Americans have faced.

“I’ve always said that our university has a great Marketing Department so I’m not surprised that Melody’s work was recognized,” said Macarena Hernández, co-chair of the conference and the Victoria Advocate Endowed Professor of the Humanities. “I was amazed at how she was able to take such a complicated subject and strip it down to its core and convey our conference message to a larger audience.”

Macarena Hernández

The poster echoed the title of the conference and encompassed themes of immigration, culture, work and personalities.

“When I approached the design of this poster, I thought about the topic and how unique it is that the university was holding this conversation,” Vecera said. “I wanted to include both worker and human aspects, so I was looking for symbols of work and images that reflected humanity.”

Paula Cobler, interim director of marketing and communications, congratulated Vecera for the award, the third district honor the UHV Marketing Department has earned in the past two years.

“I am pleased the judges rewarded Melody for her exceptional poster design,” Cobler said. “The poster is just one example of the imaginative concepts our graphic design team produces throughout the year.”

The ADDYS are the largest creative competition in the country with more than 40,000 local entries competing in 200 markets. The awards are determined by judges based on their professional opinions of the quality of work in each category.

UHV won 16 ADDY awards at the local level in February, including four special awards. A poster campaign for the UHV Counseling Center created by Graphic Designer Amberley Gutierrez was named Best of Show. The UHV 2011-2012 annual report website, www.UHVannualreport.com, won Best of Digital and a Special Judges Award. The collateral materials for the annual report won Best of Print.