Sessions Design Competitions are sponsored
by leading New York-based companies and organizations.
The Winter competition sponsor is Urban Word NYC,
a non-profit organization providing community and
support through free creative writing programs to
NYC teens.
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Competition winners gain a portfolio
piece second to none: the chance to design a
professionally-produced project that is used
by a leading company or organization. |
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Runners-up will have their work featured in
our online design competition gallery. |
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Contestants submitted a poster design that
was judged by a panel of Sessions Faculty
members. Finalists were given one round of critique
and asked to design an entire suite of promotional
materials that will be submitted to the client
for final selection |
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Got a question about the Sessions
Design competitions? Email us at competition@sessions.edu.
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Below you'll find an introduction to the client,
a summary of the design brief, and contest rules.
About The Client
Urban Word NYC provides free creative writing, performance,
spoken word, and hip-hop resources to teenagers in
NYC.
As a youth-driven program, Urban Word NYC encourages
teens to discover and use their voices to bring to
light the issues that are important to them. They
are a community for young writers in all five boroughs
of New York City, aiming to reach under-served populations
of teens in particular. Urban Word NYC knows that
youth need a creative and critical outlet and a community
that supports them.
Urban Word NYC progams include:
• Workshops in creative writing and performance.
• Youth mentoring, leadership, scholarship,
and internship programs.
• Performances, publications, and CDs of NYC's
best youth poetry and spoken word.
• Outreach programs in schools, homeless shelters,
rehabilitative sites, and correctional facilities.
About The Project
Finalists will be asked to design a suite of promotional
materials, including a logo, postcard, poster, brochure,
programs, T-shirts, neck tags and stickers for the
Annual Teen Poetry Slam, an 11-day event in NYC. These
pieces will get tremendous exposure— they are
circulated all over the city and worn by the participants
long after the event, and the event itself garners
press coverage in sources such as Seventeen Magazine
and the New York Times.
Because the competition is so extensive, the project
was divided into two parts: competitors submitted
up to three variations on a logo, plus a postcard
design featuring their favorite logo, for an initial
deadline of Monday, November 17. From these submissions,
semi-finalists were chosen to go on and submit the
full suite of designs for the brochure, poster, program,
invitations, necktags, Tshirts, and stickers.
For reference, here are the guidelines that
were provided to participants:
The Logo: Contestants were asked
to design a logo specifically for the Teen Poetry
Slam event. This logo must look good with the preexisting
Urban Word NYC logo (see below) and also work as a
freestanding logo, used every year as branding for
the Teen Poetry Slam.
Design Brief: The logo should read
6th Annual Teen Poetry Slam and incorporate the url
www.urbanwordnyc.org. The logo should be done in only
one color, and in general it is best to work out logo
designs in black and white to evaluate the shape before
you apply color.
The main element of the logo is "Teen Poetry
Slam." The words "6th Annual" would
be introductory words, functioning as lead-in text,
so this would be reflected in their size and/or placement
in relation to the main element, "Teen Poetry
Slam." The url, www.urbanwordnyc.org, should
be worked into the logo in a subtle way, functioning
as an add-on or subtitle, also secondary to the main
element. Logo designs should be submitted in black
and white, two color, and four color variations. The
logo should be done in Illustrator or another vector-based
program so that it can be easily resized without compromising
quality. You may submit up to three versions of the
logo, using your favorite on the postcard design.
Finalists will be given feedback on the logo and told
which one to use when designing the rest of the pieces.
Postcard: This will contain the
Urban Word NYC logo, the Teen Poetry Slam logo, and
the dates, times, locations and descriptions for all
functions taking place in this eleven-day event. All
copy for the postcard was provided in a text file
upon competition registration.
Size: The postcard will be 5"
x 7", and JPEGs for the initial November 17 submission
should be saved at that size.
Colors/Fonts: To keep production
cost down, the postcard should be done in a two-color
design, (last year's was black and red on white) though
you may also submit a 4-color version if you like.
No hard and fast specs for type fonts will be given,
but participants should look at the Web site, www.urbanwordnyc.org,
to get a sense of the feeling of the young urban sensibility
combined with creativity and self-expression that
comprises Urban Word NYC's image. You will also get
a sense of the client by looking at last year's postcard,
which will be available to view upon registration.
Your design should be in keeping with the client's
image, just like with any design for a client.
Below you can see a GIF version of the Urban
Word NYC logo. All contestants were provided
a PSD version of the logo to work with on the print
design.
Images: Upon registration, contestants
were given the opportunity to view some artwork from
Annual Teen Slam events of the previous year. This
should have given participants an idea of the mood
of the event, without suggesting that participants
do something exactly like what's been done before.
