Meet Our Design Contest Winners!

Congratulations to the Winners of the “Make it White” Design Contest

We launched the “Make it White” design contest to introduce our customers to the awesome things designers can do with white ink. It’s a new capability for us—but the winning design is more than 4 years in the making.

Years ago, Richard Kaiser, co-founder of local marketing agency Lion + Panda, began keeping a list of things to do in Dayton. He and a friend came up with nearly 200 items. Then the demands of running a business took over, and the list was abandoned—until now.

“When I saw Oregon’s contest, I knew it was time to finish what I started,” Richard says. So he got to work. He explains, “I’ve been active in many projects focused on the resurgence of Dayton, so I contacted many local advocates directly. I also posted a link on social media to a shared spreadsheet where people could submit ideas.”

He heard from artists, lawyers, chefs, journalists, government employees, community volunteers, entrepreneurs, university students, corporate executives, and a former judge. The list grew from 200 to more than 365 Dayton to-dos in less than 2 days. “I think this validates how passionate people are in this community,” Richard says.

With the concept complete, Richard moved on to execution. He recruited designer Shannon Seebach of Seebach Creative Services to bring the idea to life. The white ink requirement—plus the amount of text that had to fit on a single page—made the project a challenge. But that didn’t scare the team: “I’ve always believed that inspiration can come through limitations,” Richard says. “We had to play with sizing fonts to create enough space, and even then it didn’t leave much room for negative space to help guide the eye.

“But I think the fact that it seems so busy really helps reinforce our overall objective: to show just how much there is so much to do in this great region of ours.”

Lion + Panda won $500 worth of printing and an HP digital printer—but the “Dayton bucket list” story is far from over. Richard plans to use the prize winnings to print copies of the flyer to distribute throughout the community. The end goal: turn the concept into a multi-point campaign, including a website that crowd sources additions to the list and social media memes that will have Creative Commons licenses for use by local organizations.

We’re thrilled that we’ll be seeing the contest’s winning design around town—and that it will be used to inspire the people of Dayton. Like many successful creative projects, it was possible through collaboration with a great team. Lion + Panda would like to thank:

• Shannon Seebach, designer
• Annie Bowers, contributor and editor
• Nicole Nett, contributor and promoter via Dayton Most Metro and the Convention of Visitors Bureau
• Libby Ballenge, contributor and Dayton advocate

Runner-up: Alex Bond, Elkhart, Indiana

Alex is a senior at the University of Dayton an aspiring graphic designer. For Alex, like Richard, the contest announcement was an opportunity: he was in the middle of a 30-day “illustration a day” challenge.

“On day 6, I got the email about the contest,” he says. “Each illustration I did branched off of the previous one. I used a moon illustration I did the day before to show off the capabilities of printing with white ink. I also used 3 of the 4 colors of 4-color process printing as the other main colors as a nod to traditional printing methods.”

Congratulations to our winners and all who entered. We hope you had as much fun designing with white ink as we did seeing your designs!

Got questions about designing in white? Contact us.