4th November 2025
Shine offers prizes nobody else can
Standing out. Showing raw talent. Making an impact. The most talented students achieve this by hard work. Some manage to get ahead, but we know it’s far from given that they’ll find the career they deserve.
The purpose of the Shine School Media Awards is to offer brilliant teenagers one more step on the ladder to success. We’re agnostic to the origin of this talent: our goal is to offer recognition and opportunity.
This week I want to tell you about Freddie, who won our ‘best design’ award for his school magazine, ‘The Eagle’. His prize included a work experience day at one of the country’s leading commercial printers, Pureprint Group.
Here’s what he told us about the experience:
Having been lucky to be awarded prizes by the Shine Media Awards at Stationers’ Hall, I was invited to spend a day at Pureprint Group. I was welcomed into the process behind the creative and tangible elements of our daily experiences interacting with physical medium from posters to papers that we take for granted.
Pureprint kindly structured the day so that I could follow my designs as an example of how a project turns from a visual idea into a physical outcome. Observing the intricate, carefully crafted routes a job takes before reaching its destination of being shipped in quantities from the factory has given me a new understanding on the various forms of creative input that is required along the way before it reaches the viewer. Starting by shadowing those who work closely with the client to sculpt an achievable outcome that meets the visions of both the client, the creator and consumer, before moving through various integral steps to reach the factory floor.
Where expertise is cast to prepare lithographic and digital prints. Colours are mixed and plates are prepared while pages are cut and bound through a variety of elaborate methods to produce one cohesive product. Just as a cover supports a book’s pages, and its pages the words we read, the structure required to produce such skilled creative outcomes is one built off of support and collaboration. As a result, as the day progressed I began to understand that in media, no one element thrives without another. My day at Pureprint built upon my work as lead graphic designer and assistant editor for my school politics magazine, as I began to learn what is exactly required for such successful collaboration. Being immersed within the process for a day led to my understanding towards impressive logistical management and communication, collective decision making and the scope for creativity at every stage.
The process inherently lends itself to creating a motivated vibrant working atmosphere that never truly rests. Being kindly shown the example of preprints work during the Wimbledon Tennis competition particularly stuck with me. Printing new programs for each new round, perfecting the cut and color through the night to be enjoyed at the event the next morning. This was a glimpse into the performance aspect of the industry. Each piece of work produced is executed like a performance, done with the knowledge that when presented with the unexpected you must adapt quickly and creatively to keep the process running with the same degree of expressive success as ever. Like a performance, it is often for the viewer. My day at Pureprint opened my eyes to the societal service that is design and media. The work done on a day-to-day basis at companies like Pureprint make them the lifesavers of our visual realm.
I left my experience both as a winner of a Shine Media Award and being fortunate to have spent a day at Pureprint excited by my wider understanding of the deeply important, wide reach of design and all the fascinating skills that come with it.
Entering the Shine Awards offers students a chance to win unique experiences that could shape their future career. As Freddie has shown, it sometimes shapes an understanding of the professional world beyond school.
I’d like to personally thank the team at Pureprint, particularly Neil Young, for setting this up for Freddie and offering him this outstanding opportunity.
Best wishes
Richard Chapman
Chair of Shine