Design Competition

Congratulations: Amy Finder, Master's Graphic Design Certificate student from Kentucky, is the winner of the City Project design competition!

Amy Finder's final design, after several stages of revision.

Competitors were given the challenge of doing a logo redesign, and then designing a 6 panel brochure in only two colors to represent the mission and values of City Project, a grassroots budget advocacy organization in New York City.

The brochure had to look polished and professional, but representative of an organization known for lobbying City Hall in pursuit of fair city budget policies.

Limited to using the colors on the City Project Web site, competitors submitted logo designs first, and finalists were selected to go ahead and do the brochure design. The submissions that came in were so all-around impressive that the faculty judges submitted no fewer than ten semi-finalists to the client.

Here's the story of how Amy Finder won
the City Project design competition:


Round One: The Logo Design

City Project's old logo consisted of their name next to a series of bars, symbolizing both a bar graph and also the city skyline. They wanted to carry over this metaphor into the logo redesign, but the words needed to integrate better with the icon.

When the logo designs came in, many of them showed incredible promise. Initially, the client felt that Amy's logo had promise but there was a problem: the shape of the "c" with the buildings through it wound up looking a bit like the "cents" symbol for American currency, which was too close to home in a negative way. "We didn't want our logo to have the connotation of being about money in a greedy sense," said Bonnie Brower of City Project. "We are a budget advocacy organization, but we're not about money in the same way that a bank or financial institution is."

Amy approached her redesign thinking about the values of City Project and came up with a logo that showed the city skyline being embraced inside the negative space of the letter C. "As soon as we saw this version of the logo we said, that's it. She totally got what we're about!"


Round Two: A Winning Concept

Amy's first design had tremendous potential, but the cover was not as strong as the inside panels; she needed a more dynamic bridge image.

Amy's first brochure design stood out from the group in terms of the readability of her inside treatment. "The way she emphasized the heading of each section really made me care about the information," said Bonnie. "And I thought the text was easiest to read of any of the brochure submissions."

The cover of Amy's brochure still needed some work. The folks at City Project found the bridge image lacking in "oomph." The shape was too symmetrical and basic, and the subtle color seemed weak. Amy went back to the drawing board to research a more dynamic bridge image to use as a silhouette. She found an image of the Brooklyn Bridge which brought a lot more energy to the page.

The finalist brochures were submitted to the City Project board of directors to vote on the winner, and they really gravitated towards Amy's design. In the words of one board member, "I like the Brooklyn Bridge as a symbol of the City, and underscores our interest in the boroughs outside of Manhattan." Another stated, "The Brooklyn Bridge gives a very NYC local feel. The design is simple but effective. The logo is the best of the three. Also, I think this version reflects the agency's mission and goals." In the end, Amy's brochure was chosen because, as a third board member said, "it seems to best reflect what City Project is and does."

This is not the first competition for Amy; she's been a frequent and dedicated participant in Sessions's design competitions, each time getting closer and closer to making the final cut. Her perseverance really paid off as her work improved with every competition. "I feel really honored," says Amy. We at Sessions are very proud of her!