As 400+ guests, including Young Guns past and present and their cohorts, overtook the ADC gallery on Thursday night, the atmosphere was electric with excitement and celebration.  The award-winning work of the ADC Young Guns 11, on display through November 29th, rose to the ceiling, rum punch flowed, and dance vibes provided by Friends with Benefits prepped the crowd for a rowdy ceremony. An attendee in line for the bathroom could be overheard remarking: “I think this is the ultimate hipster gathering in New York.”  But contrary to such spectacles of superficial cool taking place elsewhere across the city, this was a gathering of pure, unadulterated talent—talent that also happened to look pretty good.

It was a family affair.  The 37 winners were presented with their highly-coveted Cubes, specially designed by Grand Army (YG9) and Jamie Carreiro (YG11), by Young Guns Jury Members Rich Tu (YG8) and Nicole Jacek (YG8) to the motion graphic and sound stylings of DIA (headed by Mitch Paone, YG8) and Joe Johnson (YG11).

There was plenty of activity to keep people around until the wee hours: Artist Misha Tyutyunik, whose work can currently be seen on the Hurricane Sandy themed mural on the Houston Bowery Wall, amazed guests with his Adobe® Ideas live portrait station; an Instagram scavenger hunt upped the ante for hashtag-minded party-goers; and an impromptu dance floor beckoned those with the courage to show-off some moves.

It was an exceptional way to spend the evening and we couldn’t be more grateful to the sponsors that made it possible, Adobe and iStock. Annemarie Béliard, Senior Product Marketing Manager from Adobe made the trip in from Seattle to make the surprise announcement that each Young Gun would be going home with a 1-year Membership to Adobe Creative Cloud.

Be sure to check out all the amazing winners of ADC Young Guns 11 and join us in congratulating this vanguard of boundary-breaking and game-changing creative professionals.