Newswise — A team of graphic design students was a first-round winner in a design competition conducted by "INDEX:" -- a Copenhagen-based international association promoting design to improve life.
The students worked with Illinois and Oregon election officials and Design for Democracy, a nonprofit group, to design user-friendly registration forms, ballots, voting instructions and poll station signage. The project was a class assignment from graphic design associate professor Marcia Lausen, who co-founded Design for Democracy as an initiative of the professional design association AIGA.
The competition attracted 538 entries from all industries. Projects were categorized as design for community, home, work, play or body.
In the community category, the jury chose the UIC project and 30 others, including such well publicized designs as the Toyota Prius hybrid car, the Linux computer operating system, and WIKI blogging software. Most community designs addressed energy use, affordable housing, safety, and other public issues.
One winner from each category will receive a €100,000 ($122,000) award at a televised ceremony in Copenhagen on Sept. 23. A People's Choice award will be presented at the end of the exhibition.
The UIC project was among 139 top entries selected to advance to the final round of the competition. All top entries will be exhibited in five public squares in Copenhagen from Sept. 23 through Nov. 13.
"By improving the design of election materials, and ultimately building trust in government, the judges must have determined that our project fit the design-to-improve-life criteria," Lausen said. "Most design competitions are regional or national, and award individual designers based on aesthetic excellence. I believe the INDEX: organizers tapped into the need for designers working in large teams on important projects to share their accomplishments."
Some of the UIC designs will be shown also at the "D-DAY" exhibition at the Pompidou Center in Paris from June 29 to October 17. Organizers describe the show as demonstrating "contemporary design values and their anthropological and aesthetic challenges." They plan to include a "Get Out the Vote" poster for Hispanic Americans designed by student Luz Hernandez and a new Cook County ballot designed by Lausen with Cheyenne Medina of Design for Democracy.
Organizers of INDEX: plan to conduct the competition every four years.
For details on the UIC project, visit http://www.index2005.dk/Members/tenamikesy/communityObject
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