Vintage announces Vintage x Kingston Animation Prize 2026 Winners

Vintage, part of Penguin Random House UK, has announced the winners of the Vintage x Kingston Animation Prize 2026, with entries just getting ‘better and better’ (Suzanne Dean, Creative Director, Vintage) 
 
The Kingston Animation Prize is run annually in partnership with Kingston University’s BA Illustration Animation course and Vintage: the home of world-class writing, beautiful design and ideas that matter. This year, students on Kingston University’s BA Illustration Animation course were tasked with creating a 30-second promotional animation for Portia Elan’s hugely anticipated debut novel, Homebound (Chatto & Windus, May 2026). All the animations can be viewed on the Vintage YouTube channel. 

Vintage’s Creative Director, Suzanne Dean, said: ‘I judge this prize every year, and each year I can’t believe the standard of entries. It just gets better and better. I was particularly impressed with the details incorporated into the animations through narrative arcs, sound and image. It shows the care the students have taken to match the tone and content of the book.  Congratulations all.’ 

Homebound is the story of five unforgettable characters: a pirate captain in a future waterlogged world, an astronaut on a mission, a pioneering scientist, one very special ‘Aye’ and a computer game that a grieving 1980s teenager is coding in her bedroom. Speculative, immersive and open-hearted, Homebound is a coming out and coming-of-age story, a sea adventure, a space odyssey and a moving tapestry of time, loss, creativity and found family. It already has fans in Madeline Miller, Kaliane Bradley and Ruth Ozeki. 

Judges included the book’s author, Portia Elan; Neoludic’s Raven Rusch, who is one of the creators behind popular game Tiny Bookshop; and Vintage’s Creative Director, Suzanne Dean.  
 
The book’s author, Portia Elan said: ‘A huge thank you to all of the animators who produced videos based on Homebound. It was deeply moving to see the animators' reimaginings of my novel through their own artistic visions and skills. The animators brought the characters and world of the book into a new kind of life, and all of their work demonstrated a high degree of thoughtfulness, care, and creativity.’ 

Alba Ruiz, Anouska Rouyer, Freya Skirrow, Maria Vian and Mia Pfister made up the winning team, taking home £1,200 with their animation. 

‘We were all greatly inspired by the world and atmosphere that Portia had created in Homebound and felt excited at the chance to translate her already visually rich novel into emotionally impactful imagery. Reading and analysing the book as a group, we each felt creatively inspired by our deep connection to the stories of these four women. We aimed to create immersive transitions between each setting of our animation- a tribute to the interwoven narratives of the book. We are so honoured and grateful to be part of Homebound’s release' - Mia Pfister, Anouska Rouyer, Alba Ruiz, Freya Skirrow, Maria Vian 

Second prize, worth £600, went to Bronwyn Ellery, Jessica Preston, Katy Jaques, Ruby Gurung, and Thunder Lambauer while Emily Sparey, Finn Jones, Flossie Battersby-Irvine, and Rowan Periton were awarded the £300 third prize.  

Stephen Brown, Nina Carter, Laura Copsey and Peter Millard, Kingston University’s BA Illustration Animation staff team said: ‘It was such a pleasure to see the students develop their animations each week. They all pushed themselves to try new methods and collaborated well to make and edit some fantastic trailers. The groups should be so proud of the work they’ve made – we certainly are. Homebound provided such rich, fertile ground to work from; characters and relationships students could connect with and landscapes changing in ways they could imagine. We’re so grateful to the Vintage team and Portia for sharing this work with us and providing such thoughtful and open-minded feedback throughout'.

To find out more about Homebound, visit the webpage here. 

View the animations here.