Design students’ skills will be put to the test in a friendly competition between two rival schools: SDSU and USD. Competitors will have just 12 minutes to create a design that will be judged by industry professionals. 

The Color Clash is hosted by the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) at the University Center in Sioux Falls,

Eight students from South Dakota State University and eight students from the University of South Dakota will go head-to-head in a single-elimination bracket. Each pair of students will be given a prompt. At the end of the 12 minutes, local design professionals from Sioux Falls decide the winner based on which design best accomplishes the prompt.

While it is a friendly competition, the organizers sought to play up the rivalry between SDSU and USD. 

“That’s where the ‘color clash’ comes in,” AIGA SDSU President Sydney Hausmann said. “The theme is blue versus red.” 

This will be seen at the competition in a number of ways, such as the food table having blue and red food.The competition is set up to help the students enforce design skills, to receive criticism from professionals and to see what they can do in only 12 minutes. 

But above all else, it’s for fun. 

“We did our best to make everybody feel like it was a game night rather than a competition,”  said AIGA SDSU Vice President and Color Clash host Jade Neeman.

The prompts given follow suit with this philosophy and are meant to show the competitors’ creativity. A couple of last year’s prompts included designing a wine label using only the Comic Sans font and to design a new Girl Scout patch.

“Everyone gets a chance to be as creative as possible,” Hausmann said.

The prize for the winner is also a low-stakes goodie bag, encouraging students to have fun and not to focus on being the winner.

The competition is open and free for the public to spectate and will take place at 6 p.m. Nov. 22 at the Sioux Falls University Center.