Key details
Date
- 21 October 2022
Author
- RCA
Read time
- 2 minutes
The Pokémon Company and the Royal College of Art are proud to announce the winners of the fifth Pokémon Scholarship – MA/MSc Innovation Design Engineering student Steph Jump and MA Visual Communication student Ollie Cameron.
Key details
Date
- 21 October 2022
Author
- RCA
Read time
- 2 minutes
The Pokémon Scholarship supports pioneering RCA students who demonstrate the potential for breaking new ground with their creative forces in the visual arts, design and communications. The scholarship provides full-fee scholarships for two second year students.
Steph Jump is a transdisciplinary designer who thrives at the intersection of the creative and technical. Originally from a physics and bioengineering background, Steph’s career has ranged from designing medicine-producing microbes for rare genetic diseases to advising corporations as a biotechnology consultant. Her current design practice explores leveraging biotechnological techniques to improve textile circularity and sustainability, as well as issues related to gender representation in STEM.
“Pokémon is a huge inspiration for me, so it is an honour to have been selected as a Pokémon Scholar. Through video games, I hope to improve gender equity in STEM education. I aim to do this by improving girls’ mental rotation skills, which are key to success across many STEM disciplines. Video games are a fun and accessible way to hone these abilities. Pokémon is a great role model for designing games that are welcoming to all, fun, educational, and challenging. Likewise, Pokémon serves as a great role model for building a community-based company. Its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion is tangible—such as its recent $5 million donation to organisations including Black Girls Code—and its investment in this scholarship. To Pokémon, I’d like to say thank you for this wonderful opportunity. I look forward to embodying your philosophy of thinking globally and acting locally in my designs.”
MA/MSc Innovation Design Engineering
Ollie Cameron’s research-led illustration practice uses the creative intersection between different fields as an opportunity to understand the social issues around us with topics ranging from surveillance to radiation. Ollie’s current research at the RCA explores the visualisation of memory in relationship to objects and landscape, with the aim to open dialogue and draw connections between communities and social histories.
“I am deeply thankful to have been selected as a 2022 Pokémon Scholar by The Pokémon Company. As a designer led by research and collaboration, the scholarship presents a unique opportunity to further develop my practice in ways that did not seem possible. The scholarship will greatly support my ambition of forming new innovative ways of perceiving, and ultimately better understanding, the social issues around us through experimental forms of illustration and storytelling. It will allow me to broaden the scope and scale of my future research, and help me to continue experimenting in the creative intersection between different disciplines and fields. I am excited to develop a relationship with The Pokémon Company, and it is a true honour to be able to align my practice with their core values that I have found so inspiring since childhood; collaboration, innovation and creative exchange.”
MA Visual Communication
