Twelve students receive national Society of Illustrators awards

Twelve students and recent graduates from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) received 2025 honors from the national Society of Illustrators, with one graduate receiving three awards for works done while a student. The 2025 awards marked the highest monetary award received by MIAD Illustration students, with the number of accepted entries steadily increasing over the last ten years.

Phoebe Nelson ’25 and Becca Anderson ’24 received Scholarships Awards: Nelson the Chiu-Yueh Lai Scholarship Award for her mixed-media work “Harriet Tubman,” and Anderson the In Memory of Harry Rosenbaum Award for her digital “Alice in Wonderland Cup.” Anderson also received honors for the digital works: “Have a Fire B-Day” and “Wild Things.”

Julius Koo, “Roadside Picnic”

Nearly 2,000 college-level students from 62 schools were nominated by their professors for the awards, which are judged by professional peers, including illustrators and art directors. An exhibition of all selected students is held May 7 – June 7, 2025, at the society’s New York headquarters, with a reception on May 9.

According to the society, “Pieces are accepted based on the quality of technique, concept and skill of medium used.”

“The Chiu-Yueh Lai Scholarship Award is an amazing honor, and it not only will provide me with financial support as I begin my career after graduation, but it has also boosted my confidence in my illustrative work,” says Nelson.

“I have been continuing to work in cut paper, and I have recently completed another book dummy that I will be submitting to publishers and agents over the next few months.”

“This piece was made in tandem with a book cover for Illustration Seminar II as a way to get us practicing book illustration on classic pieces of literature, my selection being “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” says Anderson. “My goal was to create an image full of the life and madness that’s associated with the story while utilizing negative space to depict Alice herself, and overall I really enjoyed the process and the outcome.”

Additional MIAD awardees are Tom Painter ’26 for “Stick,” Sydney Bledsoe ’25 for “Dog in Store,” Julia Flock ’25 for “Penfield Poster,” Julius Koo ’26 for “Roadside Picnic,” Cyprien Morin ’24 for “Pepe’s Kitchen 1,” Riley Peters ’25 for “Penfield Poster,” Intan Zulkifi ’24 for “Muslin Mountains,” Xander Maxwell ’26 for “Happy Halloween,” Sarah Winans ’25 for “Where is Shadow,” and Lexington Berens-VanHeest ’25 for “Eric Carle.”

Learn more about MIAD’s award-winning Illustration and Animation programs! Apply to MIAD.