The winner of the CiB design competition is….

Drum roll please….Congratulations to Katie Parry of Supercool design who has won the Created in Birmingham design competition with this fantastic graphic map of Brum. The decision was made by myself and Kay at Cut-Out shop, and we thought the design was simple, beautiful  and fulfilled the brief to a T.

The design will be lovingly screenprinted by hand onto high quality t-shirts and canvas bags by up and coming DiY print shop Cut-Out who are based in the West Midlands. The items will be sold via Cut-Out and will be strictly limited edition. All profits made from the items will be donated in Acorn Children’s Hospice. I will be meeting with Kay to thrash out the details in the next week so I will let you know anymore details then.

Many thanks to everyone who has taken the time to enter the competition, there has been a smorgasbord of different styles submitted and every one of them was thoughtfully put together from the brief. I will post some of them up in the next few days.

13 Comments

  8. It’s excellent. It’s actually a list of electoral wards around Birmingham so even to a life-long Brummie like me some of the names are unfamiliar (Sutton Trinity?). It reminds me that area I grew up in (Ward End/Alum Rock/Saltley) doesn’t even get a look in anymore. Although using wards is so much better than more recent inventions such as Eastside, Westside, Heartlands etc.

    The version on the Birmingham Economy website is clickable so you can find out fascinating facts about each ward such as:
    “Shard End Ward is situated in the east of the city. It has a slightly older age profile than the City average. The percentage of ethnic minority residents is below the city average. Unemployment is above the city average.” Or at least that’s the kind of stuff I find fascinating.

  9. Thanks for the kind words, folks!

    I’m hoping it’ll help raise lots of money for Acorns – my dad has already told me he’ll have a t-shirt, so there’s one sold before it’s even been made ;)

    In response to John (and to repeat James), the ward map was based on the design of an Ork Posters map of Chicago, which is twinned with Brum (as mentioned in the post James has linked to above). So, yep, it looks like that on purpose!

    I’m just really pleased that something I enjoyed doing as a little experiment will, fingers crossed, help make a bit of cash for a good cause – as well as being highly educational ;)

  10. jawj

    Hmmm… interesting: design and potential debate on validity of design wining such a competition. Now I must say the honesty on the origins is commendable and can see the work seems to have been done as a bit of and an experiment, but for it to win a design competition when it is a copy of another design? Maybe the other entries were rubbish and/or maybe the judges had no idea or its origination but I’m not convinced. Yes all in the name of charity is good and I have no problem with the work being done as internal company development but in the public domain in this way is questionable.

  11. Kate Spragg

    Hi Jawj, we decided on Katie’s design simply because it was the best! It is going to look great on a tee shirt and selling the t-shirts for charity is what it is all about. It is a simple design concept for a simple charity idea. I wasn’t aware of the origins of the design but a homage / pastiche / nod to something else is all good with me.

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