The moment you’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived! First of all I’d like to thank you all for participating this year and making the competition such a great success. We got a lot of coverage online this year as the competition is growing in popularity. Enough about all that— let’s get to what you REALLY want: this year’s winners.

1st Place Goes to Ramond Walker for his designs for Launch Ministries!

2nd Place Goes to Sherman Merchant for his designs for Oops! Creative:

3rd Place Goes to Ramond Walker for designs for Revolution:

Awards of Distinction Winners Listed Below:

Austin Beymer

Joy Franzen

David Willis

Chelsea Davey

Shawn Bender

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If you’ve been anxiously awaiting the results of the 2nd annual In Search of Identity Student Design competition, your wait is almost over! The judges arein the final stages of judging and the winners will be announced officially on February 1st, 2010.
This year, we’ve seen a tremendous growth in talent and professionalism among our entrants. If you weren’t able to enter this year,get started on your 2010 entries! It’s never too early!

Thanks for participating, and we look forward to seeing this year’s winners!

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Students! If you haven’t yet, get your entries in for the ISOD Student Identity Competition this week. Don’t miss out on your opportunity to get some experience and gain some momentum in the industry as you win the opportunity to be featured on a design blog and share your experiences with the rest of your peers! Good luck!

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I’ve got a confession to make. Of all the pieces that make up an identity package, my favorite by FAR is the business card. Why? The sheer flexibility it offers. There are NO limitations to what you can DESIGN with a business card. Any style, any shape, any color, and outlandish thing you can imagine can actually WORK as a business card.

There is no other single design piece I’ve found that offer’s so much flexibility. We’ve talked before about fake finishes design tricks and cheap ways to make a big difference, but let’s look at some ideas that you can use to display your text.

Text. We know that a business card HAS to contain information, and more often than not, it has to contain LOTS of information. Information that is ESSENTIAL to a strong business card. This alone, may sound like an overwhelming task, but what it REALLY is, is an overwhelming opportunity to do something great.

Let’s look at some inspiration for just such an occassion:

Orientation. Dare to be different. Change the orientation of your business card from horizontal to vertical. And don’t forget the front AND the back.

Right Alignment. Contact information right aligned is probably the most common of ANY alignment style for a business card. However, you can still pull it off with class:

Left Align. While the alignment may be common, this design is anything but. When you “create” a business card every detail is important.

Diagonal. These cards show a different kind of alignment– go DIAGONAL. Arrange the content and the text in such a way that it creates a design itself.

For more inspirational business cards visit Daily Poetics Flickr stream.

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Iddy Awards

It’s almost that time of year! The 2nd Annual In Search of Design Student Identity competition will begin accepting entries on October 1st. Let’s go over the rules–if you’re currently a student or recently graduated and have STUDENT work you’d like to enter then you’re eligible.

Unlike many other competitions, that charge exorbitant competition entry fees, The ISOD Iddy Awards is a strictly STUDENT Competition designed to expose the best of the best Student Identity Designs. The best part is, because we understand the expenses of higher education, this competition only costs $10 per entry.
Now, the best part! Because the contest is for Identity packages, each entry must consist of a student-designed, Logo, Business Card, Letterhead and Envelope. These pieces can be actual pieces created for clients, self promotional pieces or concept pieces created for fake or imaginary clients. Entries are based on the following criteria:

Awards are granted for the following categories:

Grand Prizes:

1st Place – Overall Package

2nd Place — Overal Package

3rd Place — Overall Package

The Overall packages are judged based on the following criteria:

Clarity of Message, Piece Integration, Consistency of Design, Overall Use of Color, Overall Creativity

There are also Certificates awarded for the following criteria:

Logos: judged on the following criteria: Creativity, Use of Color, Uniqueness, “WOW” Factor, Scalability and Color Conversion to BW.

Letterhead: judged on the following criteria: Creativity, Use of Color, Logo Integration, Main Letter “Area”, Contact Info. Placement, Use of Whitespace, Overall Appearance
Envelopes: judged on the following criteria: Creativity, Use of Color, Logo Integration, Address Placement, Overall Appearance
Business Cards: judged on the following criteria: Creativity, Use of Color, Logo Integration, Placement of Elements, “WOW” Factor, Overall Appearance

Click here for a breakdown of rules and award information.

The Entry deadline for the 2009 Competition is January 1st, 2010, students, start your designs!

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To SPEC or not to SPEC? That is a question many designers face. Honestly, it’s a decision each designer must choose for themselves. Personally, I don’t have a problem with SPEC work and I will share some of my own personal boundaries regarding my involvement with it.

First, in case you are not yet familiar with the term–let’s define SPEC work. We’ve all seen contests, competitions, and calls for submissions. And basically that’s what SPEC work is.

Any design task that does not involve face to face or a direct client-designer relationship is generally considered SPEC work as you are working to predetermined SPECIFICATIONS that are outlined by the contest holder.

There is a lot of division in the design world as to whether or not SPEC work should be taken seriously. The AIGA speaks out very strongly AGAINST designers taking SPEC work.

To me, SPEC work can actually be a VERY positive experince for the designer. Working from SPEC is very valuable as you are often stretched to move beyond conventional direction and reach inside yourself to find your creativity.

Some say that offering design jobs as SPEC work is unfair to designers. I disagree. Any designer chooses which competitions to enter. The choice is theirs. If they don’t have the time, the expertise, or the knowledge to competently compete in a certain contest they are free to walk away or wait for one more suited to their needs.

In my own case, I am quick. My speed as a designer is probably my greatest asset. That being the case when I hear of a competition that falls within my areas of expertise I can quickly create entries, but that’s not to day I spend all my time on SPEC work. In fact just the opposite is true. Less than 1% of my time is spent on SPEC work and the rest is working with and developing relationships with my clients.

For me, it’s nice to break out of the bounds of the ‘usual’ and into the realm of the new and exciting. Being competitve by nature I enjoy the ‘chance’ involved by doing my best and stacking up against the competition.

Sometimes I win, sometimes I don’t. But EVERYTIME I walk away with knowledge, experience and PRACTICE! That’s what life and DESIGN is all about.

You make your own choice whether or not it is valuable for you to design for spec occassionally. But as for me I will continue to carefully choose which contests to enter. Who knows we just may compete against each other someday soon.

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The Student Identity Competition has been completed and the results are in! The Judges had some tough decisions to make as they looked over the entries.

The room where the judges sat for hours was silent. As judges, they were not allowed to discuss the pieces, simply grade the pieces based on the scorecards provided!

In the next post, I’ll reveal the winners! Stay Tuned!

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Well, as of 12 AM this morning the entry opportunity for the 2008 In Search of Design Student Identity Package competition has closed. This weekend, the panel of judges will be pouring over the entries.

Each judge will be looking for specific element placement, creativity and unique style. The category winners will be announced here next week and the grand prize winners will be contacted via email as well as displayed on the site.

For all of you who entered, good luck and thanks for participating!

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I just wanted to take the opportunity to send a shout out and remind everyone that the Student Identity Design Competiton will be coming to a close on December 1, 2008. That leaves you approximately 4 weeks to get your submissions created/uploaded and sent.

Due to the nature of this type of competition, I do want to mention that there will be category winners for specific pieces in the package. These categories include:

• Logo Development
• Use of Color
• Graphic Theme
• Creative Content
• Stationary Design

Each category will contain awards of Excellence, Distinction and Merit.
 

I have also had a few questions regarding whether or not an entrant may enter multiple design packets. The answer: Absolutely! As long as the individual design packages contain all the necessary pieces, contestants are allowed to enter as many packages as they wish.

If you have any other questions or need to contact me do so here and I will respond to your questions. You may also email me if you prefer.
 

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Recently while attending a series of sessions relating to design, technology and marketing, I was confronted with an interesting question.

Why do people wait until the last minute?

Where did this procrastination society spring up? It seems like we rush around to get things done, to meet deadlines. That’s when it hit me.

When I’m approached with a new task, let’s say a design competition that I want enter, the first thing I do is check the deadline date for entries. Do we put things off because we’re just too busy to get to them or do we put them off because we no longer get an "early bird special" for being on time? Somehow being late has become the norm.
 

I love this from Seth Godin:

"Airlines and others penalize people for planning ahead by instituting non-refundable fares. We don’t get treated like royalty for signing up early, and the penalties for waiting often seem fairly small."

As marketers do we offer enough incentive for someone to purchase our products NOW? Or can they walk away from our information and feel that they can catch it later?

We’ve all heard way to many TV Special commercials. Most likely you can quote the last words, "and if you call in the next 10 minutes we’ll DOUBLE this offer."  We roll our eyes or better yet, change the channel. 
 

Let’s strive to be different, when you hear about an opportunity, jump on it. When you get  a notice in the mail that you’re interested in, act!
 

Similiarly, let me throw in a little shameless self-promotion here, students who are reading this blog, don’t wait until the day before the Student Identity Competition Deadline.
 

If we each strive to avoid putting things off another day, do you think our clients will do the same? As designer’s does the poignancy of our work dwindle over time if not acted on immediately?

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