award

Kayce Vicencio's design work for Xpress Magazine awarded nationally.

Omar Sosa Tzec — Fri, 17 Oct 2025 17:12:06 +0000

Kayce Vicencio's design work for Xpress Magazine awarded nationally.

Author: School of Design

October 17, 2025

Photo Credit: xpressmagazine.org

The College Media Association awarded the work of Visual Communication Design student Kacey Vicencio for Xpress Magazine with two third places in the nationally prestigious Advertising and General Pinnacle Awards. Vicencio won third place in the categories of Special Section Cover and Magazine Spread, with the kids' section cover of the 2025 graduation issue and the layout of an article on the Program in the Spring 2025 issue, respectively.

See the graduation issue's kids' section cover.
See the awarded spread design.

The Pinnacle Awards are CMA’s flagship national honors, recognizing the best student work in collegiate journalism, media production and organizational excellence. Winners are selected by a panel of experienced media professors and educators. (College Media Association)

Congratulations to Kacey for this national achievement!

Assist. Professor Oma Sosa-Tzec receives Marcus Early Career Research Award.

Omar Sosa Tzec — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 20:38:24 +0000

Assist. Professor Oma Sosa-Tzec receives Marcus Early Career Research Award.

Author: School of Design

August 22, 2022

Photo Credit: Cottonbro (Pexels) - https://bit.ly/3wpcNlL

The Marcus Early Career Research Award supports LCA faculty to work on research or creative work that addresses social issues in the U.S. and abroad. Assistant Professor of Visual Communication Design Omar Sosa-Tzec is one of the recipients of this award for 2022. This award releases faculty from instructional and service responsibilities for one semester in order to support their research. Sosa-Tzec's project is concerned with designing for digital wellbeing—the notion of having a balanced relationship with everyday technology.

Research shows that uncontrolled use of technology and screen time can undermine people's wellbeing by causing anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation, and productivity loss, among other unfavorable effects. This situation has motivated designers in academia and industry to explore tools and solutions that promote digital wellbeing. For this project, Dr. Sosa-Tzec will engage in social semiotic multimodal analysis and design activities, including sketching and prototyping, to investigate speculative, metaphorical, delightful ways to display screen time and digital wellbeing-related information on mobile screens. By doing so, Sosa-Tzec seeks to illustrate the generative application of (metaphorical) design tension—a concept explored in his analytical research—in UI/UX design. Additionally, he urges UI/UX designers to explore deviation from conventional design patterns as a tactic to develop "design imagination" and new possibilities for mobile screen design.

Prof. Chu wins Distinguished Faculty Award, Excellence in Teaching

Omar Sosa Tzec — Tue, 17 May 2022 00:07:25 +0000

Prof. Chu wins Distinguished Faculty Award, Excellence in Teaching

Author: School of Design

May 16, 2022

Prof. Hsiao-Yun Chu has won San Francisco State University's Distinguished Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching. The honorees were presented at the final meeting of the 2021-2022 Academic Senate by the Faculty and Staff Awards Committee co-chaired by Dylan Mooney and Darlene Yee-Melichar. Prof. Chu has been recognized for curricular innovations, program leadership, quality of teaching and advising, and high-impact practices. "San Francisco State has a long tradition as a teaching institution and one that holds excellence in teaching as its core value," said Professor Chu. "This is truly an honor."