School students and businesses have participated in the Mercury’s latest ‘Design An Ad’ project. 

Design An Ad, now celebrating 32 years, operates throughout Fairfax’s Australian Community Media network.

School students are given the opportunity to design and create an advert for a participating local business.

These designs must be hand drawn and must follow a design brief as outlined by the business.

First place in the primary school category was Lake Heights Public School year 6 student Lachlan Farthing. 

First place in the high school category was Woonona High School year 7 student Olivia Pallier. 

Olivia said her prize-winning effort was inspired by a memorable scene from the film Titanic. 

She said she'd been drawing for "a long time", and enjoyed it because "it gets me away from everything else". 

The first, second and third place winners received cash prizes, and winning schools also received a cash prize. 

This year Lancaster Law & Mediation was the major sponsor of this project. 

Director solicitor Graham Lancaster said the competition encouraged students to pursue their talents.

“People sometimes don't know what talent they have until they try it, and this will allow some artists to develop further, and discover their talent,” he said.

“You'll never know where a talent comes from.

“They're not just designing ads, they're learning how to translate information into a graphic form and communicate that to people.”

Second place primary school student went to Sierra Johnston, second place high school student was Laura Carroll, third place primary school student was Lara Grimson and third place high school student was Avoca Chappell. 

Read more: Have a look at these hand drawn advertisements created by Illawarra school students