How I Won £10,000 with One Piece of Digital Art

This one's a throwback—but a meaningful one.

Early in my career, I entered the Adobe Imagination Challenge with a digital piece called Dreams. It was a space-themed artwork inspired by the feeling of a vivid, lucid dream—something surreal and vast, like waking up inside a sci-fi film. I wanted to create a scene that felt more exciting and fantastical than reality.

That piece ended up winning 1st place, as well as the Critics’ Choice and Popular Vote. It also came with a £10,000 prize, which at the time felt completely surreal. But more than the prize, it was the validation that mattered—it showed me that concept-driven, personal work could resonate.

Unfortunately, I didn’t save any process images (rookie mistake), but I still have the final artwork. Looking at it now, years into a professional design career, I can see the early fingerprints of my style and creative thinking. It wasn’t technically perfect, but it was ambitious—and that mattered more.

Winning that competition didn’t launch my career overnight, but it did give me the confidence to keep going, to take creative risks, and to trust my ideas. That mindset has stuck with me.