While Chicago is well known for its architecture, theatre, fine art, public landscaping, and music scenes, there is a significant lack of applied visual arts in public spaces. By focusing on making this exhibition an outdoor one, Chicago hopes to accomplish two important objectives. First, they want posters to be realized as the quintessential public art form, because they engage citizens at street level, requiring an emotional and intellectual response. They also stimulate dialogue and articulation of important issues—social, political, and economic. Secondly, they want to help the City of Chicago craft its international reputation as a proponent of international cooperation and communication—and as a strong civic advocate of design.

All entries must be designed and printed between 1 January, 2006 to 1 March 2008. All entries must be received at the committee office of the Biennial address by post on or before 27 May 2008. Participants must submit TWO copies of each poster. Visit the site to learn more.

Design Book Magazine is now accepting entries for their T-shirt design competition. The winning design will be become their official shirt for the 2008 season. Winning designer’s bio and work will be shown in the Summer issue along with a link to his or her website.

Entries will be judged on creativity and originality. There is no entry fee or limit to the number of entries per designer. All designs must be original. Submit your entry by 20 June 2008 deadline. Visit the site to learn more.

Brickfish is bringing back their famous art campaign for the third time - they want to showcase your original art. Whether it’s your best drawing, painting, or sculpture, they want to display it and award you $1,000. Not bad if you’re a starving artist! They are looking for pieces in the mixed media category (pastel, chalk, charcoal, paint or any other creative substance you use to make your masterpiece). Photography will not be accepted for this campaign.

No purchase necessary. Open to anyone who is a resident of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia or Canada (excluding Quebec) has access to the Internet, and is 13 or older at the time of entry. Deadline is 23 July 2008 11:30 PM (PST). Visit the site to learn more.

Pentawards is the first and only worldwide competition exclusively devoted to packaging design in all its forms. It is open to everybody in all countries who are associated with the creation and marketing of packaging. The winners will receive bronze, silver, gold, platinum or diamond Pentawards according to the creative quality of their work.

Packaging design from the world over created or brought out in 2007 will be judged by a likewise international jury that will select the winners in accordance with the creative quality of the work submitted.

Apart from prize-giving, Pentawards’ mission is the promotion of packaging design with companies, the press, the economic and political authorities and the public in general, throughout the world.

All works presented must have been created or produced (launched) between 1 January and 31 December 2007, in any country whatever. Deadline is 13 June 2008. Visit the Web site to learn more.

The Army Ten-miler (ATM) has just announced the dates for its annual Official Race T-Shirt Design contest. Submissions for the contest will be taken from May 6 to June 6, 2008. The first place winner will receive $1,000 and the winning design will be printed on over 26,000 runner and volunteer t-shirts. The second and third place designs will win $500 and $250 respectively.

The top five entries as selected by a Blue Ribbon Panel will be posted on the Army Ten-Miler web site. Registered runners only will be eligible to vote for the top design from June 17 - 24. Last year over 6,840 runners voted for the winning designs. Winners will be determined by the greatest number of online votes. Winners will be announced on the ATM web site on June 26.

Read the rest of this entry »

Social Design Network announced today that John McArthur, new CEO of Millennium Promise, will serve on the final judging panel for the DESIGN 21 Millennium Promise Competition. The competition tasks designers to join the fight against extreme poverty by creating a web-based campaign to advocate for the eight Millennium Development Goals.

McArthur has been centrally involved with Millennium Promise since its inception in 2000 and has worked to promote Millennium Development Goals throughout rural Africa. He also served as the Policy Director at the Earth Institute at Columbia University and co-director of the Millennium Villages Project, a partnership between the Earth Institute, Millennium Promise, and the UN Development Program. Prior to this, he worked as the Deputy Director and Manager of the UN Millennium Project. There, he coordinated a global network of nearly 300 experts who served on 10 thematic Task Forces and was the lead editor of the Project’s final report to the Secretary-General, “Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals.” McArthur’s professional experiences and global expertise make him an ideal choice to evaluate submissions for DESIGN 21’s Millennium Promise Competition.

Read the rest of this entry »

The purpose of this competition is to create an online campaign design for Millennium Promise, a non-profit organization with the mission to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals – eight globally endorsed objectives that address the many aspects of extreme poverty – in Africa by 2015. Millennium Promise works with impoverished communities, national and local governments and partner organizations to implement high-impact programs aimed at transforming lives on the African continent and engaging donor nations, corporations and the general public in the effort.

This competition calls for the design of a new media campaign that promotes public awareness of the Millennium Development Goals (”MDGs,” provided at the competition site). The aim of the campaign is to prompt the general public to do what they can to support the cause and urge their leaders to stick to their commitment to the MDGs. The campaign needs to be web-based. It should be designed to reach as wide and global an audience as possible on the Internet, and as such anything of a “viral” nature is encouraged – but the campaign can only be represented using the Entry Provisions stated at the site and in the Entry Rules.

Early entry deadline is Tuesday June 17 2008 at 6:00pm UTC (Universal Coordinated Time).

Inhabitat is at it again - they’re showcasing the work produced by students from the University of Belgrade, made from industrial wood and shown at the Milan Furniture Fair. They want you to vote for your favorite design - whether you vote or not, go take a look at the student work. It’s amazingly creative and beautiful!

Students, instructors and administrators: Submit your students’ latest design, advrtising and photography work to Graphis New Talent. Get the recognition you deserve, and share your work with peers and hiring industory professionals. Every student included earns a Graphis Gold Award, and standout instructors earn the Platinum Award.

Register online with this link, and click on the Call For Entry link on that page. Complete instructions, forms, art specifications, shipping and payment procedures may be obtained online at the entry Web site. All entrants and subscribers are eligible for a 40% discount on the annual. Deadline is 26 May 2008.

Photographs that focus on all things horses, from Appaloosas to Zebras, country roaming to carousel rotating, are welcome to this call for entry. Images of working horses, wild horses, dressage, tack, anything related to the life of our equine friends is welcome.

The Center for Fine Art Photography, located in Fort Collins, Colorado, invites photographers working in all mediums and styles to participate in its exhibitions. Traditional, contemporary, avant-garde, creative and experimental works, including new processes, mixed techniques are welcome.

The exhibition, which will be held at The Center for Fine Art Photography’s gallery from September 5 through September 27, 2008, is open to all domestic and international, professional and amateur photographers working with digital or traditional photography or combinations of both.

Deadline is 18 June 2008. Visit the site to learn more about hte judge, the exhibition, and the prize awards.