Meet our 2020 student stars!
It’s our favorite time of the year–Launch Scholarship Season! Every spring, we proudly honor two rising design students from UNT Communication Design with a $1,000 scholarship. And while 2020 has sent many students into the virtual world of studying, creating, designing and working from home, that didn’t stop this year’s recipients from coming through with an amazing lineup of inspiring work.
After an online portfolio review of selected junior design majors, we have selected Taylor Hill and Hana Snell as our 2020 Launch Scholarship recipients. Both were honored on May 17 at the first virtual home graduation ceremony in the history of the College of Visual Arts and Design. Taylor was recognized for best art direction and Hana was awarded for best design portfolio.
Launch established the annual scholarship in 2007 to inspire creative excellence and make a positive impact on the caliber of graduates who will, inturn, positively impact our design and advertising community.
Hana Snell – Winner Design Portfolio
Taylor Hill – Winner Art Direction
Congrats to Taylor and Hana! May their talent continue to soar!
Diane Seimetz
As a child, Diane was always creating things and showed an early interest in writing. She would make cookbooks, write three-act plays, enter poetry contests, and even enlisted the help of her father to send promotional ideas to companies (winning 10 free ice cream cones from Baskin Robbins as a result).
She graduated from college with a Fine Arts degree with a concentration in Theater but knew that her passion for plays wasn’t necessarily a career path. She worked several jobs post-graduation to make ends meet – making eyeglasses in an optical factory, clerking at a dress store, working for a professional babysitting service – before picking up a writing gig at an ad agency.
The advertising industry was a godsend for Diane.
“I felt like an equal in an industry where talent reigned and leveled the playing field,” she says. “I didn’t find out until many years later that I often earned less than my male counterparts. But honestly, I loved what I did so much, I usually couldn’t believe I was actually getting paid to do it. My late husband was a CPA, and when we talked about what we did at the end of a long day, I recognized how very fortunate I was to have a creative job, and hugely talented, inspiring, often hilarious people alongside me.”
One of the biggest aids when Diane was first starting out was her mentor, 
Diane Fannon of The Richards Group
“She took a flyer on me, and I will always be grateful for her,” says Diane. “She was (and still is) a tireless advocate for great work, an incredible strategic thinker and killer presenter. She also tells a dirty joke like nobody’s business.”
Mentorships like the one Diane experienced early in her career are crucial for preventing women in middle management positions from leaving the ad industry altogether. 
Diane and some of the Launch team trading stories at the 15th Launchiversary dinner.
In order to increase the number of female leaders in advertising, it’s also important that women take stock of their own approach to the job. Diane believes that transferring your innate passions to your work is the most important skill a woman in business can have and that this transfer takes time and practice.
“Most of us have strong emotions that are deeply felt and powerful gut instincts,” she says, “but they can only be used to make great work and transform a client’s business if they are applied and shared.”
