Competitions

I entered a logo/poster competition this year for something I believe strongly in, a BEER festival.  Competitions can be fun to enter because you get a chance to see how your work stacks up against other artists. But they can also be painful, because you put forth a lot of effort to produce a finished product that could be rejected just because it reminds one of the judges of an old girlfriend or something (not a true example by the way). Of course the people that benefit the most from competition are the people holding them. They receive a wide variety of ideas and styles and can choose the work they like best for much less effort and cost than it would have been to hire someone to do the work in the first place.  But that's ok, the people who submit to competitions are likely like me (they have a day job and do things like this for fun), or they are trying to make a name for themselves and get some experience and some notoriety by winning a competition.

Winning entry

Amazing as it may seem, I did not win this competition. So - I boycotted the event and drank at home. Maybe I'll try again sometime, it depends on what else is going on at the time. I believe the winner of this competition received some printed versions of their winning entry, VIP passes to the event, and a basket full of goodies from many of the microbreweries. My guess is a value of $300 to $500 depending on the goodies. Let me know if you think of the winning poster compared to mine, and don't worry about hurting my feelings.

The tough thing about being a hobby artist is achieving just enough success to keep you optimistic that you could be pretty good at this if you keep trying. In the year 2000, I won a competition for the St. Joseph, Michigan Venetian Festival shirt design. I was not the overall winner, just the adult/commercial artist award winner (the overall winner was some high school kid that year). I felt great about winning the competition and was excited to enter again. I was a little disappointed in the prize for my category though - 1st; the judging committee seemed surprised that I really wanted to collect on the prize, 2nd;the award was 4 T-shirts with my design printed on them, which really meant ironed-on to them. It was a bit of a letdown, but I can understand from their point of view the hassle it must have been to provide 4 specially printed shirts. Like I said though the main thing that experience accomplished was to encourage me to keep at it - I'll break through and be an overall winner someday.