AIGA together with DxD (Diversify by Design), announced the 2026/2027 winners of the AIGA Worldstudio DxD Scholarships. In its 31st year, this scholarship program encourages social and environmental responsibility and cultural awareness in the next generation of artists and designers. Nine Award Winners and five Honorable Mentions, selected from 204 applications in the categories of Communication Design, Illustration and Photography, make up the $38,500 total awarded.
AIGA launched the scholarship with Mark Randall’s Worldstudio in 1995 and it’s become one of the longest-running efforts of its kind in American design education. Scholarships are awarded annually to students enrolled at colleges and universities who demonstrate a commitment to positive social change, environmental responsibility, and cultural awareness through the practice of visual communication. DxD, a coalition of designers, educators and organizers, partnered with AIGA to manage the program in 2024 and has kept growing it since.
“This year’s winners built a case for their place in a design industry that still isn’t readily accessible to many. For over thirty years, the AIGA Worldstudio DxD Scholarship has existed to close that gap, one talented student at a time, and we’re proud to carry forward the vision Mark Randall set in motion all those years ago,” said Andréa Pellegrino, managing director, Impact Collaborative.
2026 Scholarship Recipients
COMMUNICATION DESIGN
- Samantha Mireles-Melgarejo, Senior, University of Wisconsin-Stout (Award Winner)
- Deanna Brown, Senior, Thomas Jefferson University (Award Winner)
- Marti Allen, Graduate Student, Full Sail University (Award Winner)
- Isabella Byabato, Senior, Rochester Institute of Technology (Award Winner)
- Steph Carbajal, Junior, Art Center College of Design (Honorable Mention)
- Narges Sedaghat, Graduate Student, East Carolina University (Honorable Mention)
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ILLUSTRATION
- Ayvri Cormia, Freshman, Otis College of Art and Design (Award Winner)
- Olive Sandler, Freshman, Savannah College of Art and Design (Award Winner)
- Keane Wong, Freshman, Northwestern University (Award Winner)
- Susana Orrego, Freshman, Florida International University (Honorable Mention)
- Faith Ogenyi, Sophomore, University of Cincinnati (Honorable Mention)
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PHOTOGRAPHY
- Leslie Ann Meléndez, Senior, Emerson College (Award Winner)
- Anoke Deitg Blanchard, Freshman, University of Connecticut (Award Winner)
- Kaden Dawson, Graduate Student, Columbia University (Honorable Mention)
The work itself ranges widely. For example, Samantha Mireles-Melgarejo, a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, won in Communication Design for bilingual packaging built around Mexican beverage traditions, plus a poster series pushing for immigration reform on behalf of fieldworkers.
Deanna Brown, also a Communication Design winner and a senior at Thomas Jefferson University, built restaurant branding around her family’s Jamaican heritage and a poster campaign spotlighting Black women in small business.
In Photography, Columbia University graduate student Kaden Dawson won an Honorable Mention for mixed-media memorial work about family, memory and loss.
Award Winners each receive $4,000. Honorable Mention recipients receive $500, and everyone gets a one-year complimentary AIGA Student membership.
