By Les Kollegian
Okay… I am a longtime AIGA member and I love the organization. Frankly I feel like I owe my career to what the network of amazing creative professionals has done for me. In fact, I sat on the board of the San Diego chapter as Communication Chair, which is where I met my business partner Charlie Van Vechten, who was the San Diego AIGA chapter President. Last week, we proudly launched what we think is a very cool contest to ask aspiring artists to use their talents to help promote America’s right to vote. The contest was inspired by AIGA. However, I can assure anyone and everyone that we are NOT competing with AIGA. Our belief was to create a different Vote campaign by taking a good concept, having more fun with it, focusing solely on college students and giving away prizes and recognition for their efforts. With that being said….We are very proud and excited about our recent announcement to host our very first student design competition, Vote by Design.
We are honored to offer design students from all over the world the opportunity to visually express their opinions all in an effort to raise voter awareness surrounding the 2012 election. This is about giving college students a vehicle to be creative and strategic… and give them an opportunity to gain some real life agency experience should they win. While we do share, with AIGA, the same goal of promoting vote awareness throughout a younger generation, we’ve structured Vote by Design to be a student design competition rather than an open submission for AIGA members only. All students (AIGA members or not) who have entered their work to AIGA are welcome to enter our contest as well. All we ask is that they truly strive to symbolize their drive to vote. And frankly…we are just looking for original and amazing conceptual design.
Ultimately, the mission of Vote by Design is to raise awareness about the importance of making one’s voice heard, while at the same time providing driven design students with a job opportunity. Vote by Design is supported by “Rock the Vote” and frankly we have a ROCK STAR judging panel that students can appreciate evaluating their work. We’re looking forward to seeing the submissions and are very eager to see the type of awareness this contest can bring. To enter, please visit http://www.votebydesign.com