DENVER - 02-19-2008 Quark Inc. today announced the winners of its annual graphic design competition conducted in association with The Art Institutes. This year, contest participants were asked to create an original design in QuarkXPress that addresses typography in an informative, historical or humorous way. The grand prize, an all expenses paid trip to the Graphics of the Americas conference in Miami, FL, was awarded to the student who entered the most compelling poster. The Art Institute instructor working with the winning student also won a trip to Miami for the conference.

This year's grand prize winner, Lina Herrera, a graphic design student at The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, entered a poster that demonstrated the capabilities of QuarkXPress while staying within the parameters of the competition. "Out of a field of impressive entries, the judges selected Herrera's as the winning poster. Her design stands out visually and her skill in QuarkXPress is apparent," said Chris Edwards, business development specialist in education for Quark.

"The contest was a great way to show off my design skills while making a statement about type," said Herrera. "I work with QuarkXPress almost daily and think its type management is like no other. It gives me the freedom to create whatever I'd like in my projects. It's exciting to have won the contest and I'm looking forward to attending Graphics of the Americas with my instructor Debbie Rose Myers."

"Congratulations to Lina and all the students who participated in our annual design contest with Quark," said Rich Moore, vice president of academic technology for The Art Institutes. "Including QuarkXPress in our curriculum and offering the chance to use it is helpful to our students as they pursue their careers in graphic design."

"Quark is committed to working with The Art Institutes to promote the success of student designers," continued Edwards. "We had more quality entries from students this year than ever before and that's a testament to students and instructors acknowledging the value of learning and using QuarkXPress."

In addition to the grand prize, Quark awarded second and third place prizes and named honorable mentions. Second and third place prize winners were awarded Quark Deluxe Edition for Education, a set of tools that includes QuarkXPress 7, Quark Interactive Designer, Quark Print Collection and Quark XPert Tools Pro. They also received a future Education to Commercial Upgrade. The honorees are as follows:

Second Prize: Randy Pascale of The Illinois Institute of Art — Chicago Instructor: Chuck Gniech

Third Prize: Douglas Gamble of The Illinois Institute of Art — Chicago Instructor: Chuck Gniech

Honorable Mention: Kathleen Dell Street of The Illinois Institute of Art — Chicago Instructor: Chuck Gniech

Honorable Mention: Kevin Heineman of The Illinois Institute of Art — Schaumburg Instructor: Chris Sisson

To view and learn more about the students' artwork, please visit http://www.quark.com/education/aicontest2007.html