Young Guns
Young Guns is a portfolio competition awarding creative professionals 30 years and under, including designers, illustrators, entrepreneurs, and more!
1996: Art Directors Club Members Jeffrey Metzner and Bill Oberlander proposed the creation of an award which would identify and honor young creative professionals. The multi-disciplinary group would be known as the Young Guns, and would be evaluated on the strength of their entire portfolios, rather than a single piece of work.
The first class of Young Guns was curated by a selection committee of seven esteemed creatives who hand-picked 140 New York-based creative professionals 35 years of age and younger from among scores of nominees. The winners were honored with a five-week exhibition beginning on December 10, 1996.
Young Guns 1
Gordon Jee
Principal + Founder arjuna16 Albuquerque
Gordon Jee is from the first graduating class of Young Guns. He is a Grammy-nominated creative director who has worked at some of the music industry’s most iconic labels: Blue Note, Capitol, Virgin, Deutsche Grammophon, and Verve. As founder and principal of arjuna16, he continues to provide design and marketing for the music industry and also for a wide range of clients in retail, academia, wellness, finance, interiors and the performing arts.