Sookmyung Students Win at the World's Largest Advertising Festival, Cannes Lions
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- Writer 커뮤니케이션팀
- 보도일자 2025-06-17
Students from our university have won a major award in the Cannes Future Lions, a college student competition held as part of Cannes Lions, widely regarded as the world's largest advertising festival. This marks the first time in Korea that such an achievement has been made through a regular university course.
On Wednesday, June 11, our university held a launch ceremony for the "SMU Capstone Design THE NEXT+ Program" together with the award-winning students. The five winners — Kim Geun-a (Public Relations & Advertising, Class of ’21), Park Ji-young (Business Administration, Class of ’21), Lee Kyung-min (Public Relations & Advertising, Class of ’20), Lee Soo-min (Public Relations & Advertising, Class of ’20), and Jung Ha-eun (Industrial Design, Class of ’20) — also attended the awards ceremony held in Cannes, France, on June 16 (local time).
Cannes Lions is the world’s most prestigious advertising festival, held every June in Cannes, France, and is often called as the "Olympics of the Advertising World." Among the three major global advertising festivals — along with the Clio Awards and the New York Festivals — Cannes Lions is considered the most prestigious. The Cannes Future Lions, a global competition for college students held alongside the main festival since 2005, selects only four winning teams from over 1,000 entries without dividing them into categories, underscoring its high prestige.
This award is drawing special attention as it marks the first time in Korea that a win at this level has been achieved through a regular college curriculum. The students formed a team and carried out their project during the “International Advertising” course taught by Professor Moon Jang-ho in the Dept. of Public Relations & Advertising at Sookmyung Women’s University during the second semester of last year.
What sets this course apart is that it is a capstone design class focused not on theory but on hands-on project work. In support of industry-academic collaboration under the LINC 3.0 initiative, our university established the Industry-Academic Cooperation Education Center in 2022 and has consistently supported field-based practical capstone design courses. This award marks a significant milestone, as it represents international recognition of the achievements of the university's capstone design curriculum
The winning project, titled “Text Layer,” is a visual aid designed to help individuals with visual dyslexia—a condition that affects more than one in ten people worldwide. Traditional solutions, such as complementary color filters, are designed to work by blocking specific light wavelengths that cause visual distortion. However, these conventional methods often apply a uniform tint across all media, including photos and videos, limiting the user’s ability to fully enjoy visual content.
In contrast, ‘Text Layer’ uses eye-tracking technology based on Apple’s iOS platform to identify personalized color settings that enhance reading ability. It then automatically adjusts the background color of the screen accordingly. By simply repositioning the filter behind the text background rather than over the entire display, the team introduced a simple yet creative approach to addressing a social issue—earning high praise from the competition’s judges.
Award-winner Kim Geun-a commented, “I majored in advertising in college because I wanted to change the world, but at times, I felt disillusioned by the gap between idealism and reality in my studies. This award has helped me reconnect with my original goal—to create advertising that serves the public good.”
This year, our university achieved the advertising industry’s grand slam by winning awards at all five of the world’s major international advertising festivals, including the Cannes Future Lions. Following last year’s ranking as the second-best university in Asia, the university has once again demonstrated our success on the global stage.
Prof. Moon Jang-ho said, “Our students stood shoulder to shoulder with creative leaders from universities around the world at the largest global advertising festivals,” adding, “This award is a clear indicator that Sookmyung Women’s University’s creative education programs, as well as the capabilities of our faculty and students, meet global standards.”
Meanwhile, the Capstone Design THE NEXT+ project was newly launched to mark the third phase of the University Innovation Support Program in 2025, with the aim of expanding the global impact of capstone design courses. Vice President and Head of the University Innovation Group, Wee Kyung-woo, stated, “Through this project, we hope to widely promote Sookmyung Women’s University’s creative educational capabilities and excellence both domestically and internationally,” adding, “Based on the University Innovation Support Program, we plan to further expand our support for students not only in competitions but also in a variety of dynamic student programs.”