October 2016 Digital Cover Contest_feb news play 10/10/16 10:15 AM Page 49
DIGITAL PRINT COVER CONTEST SPONSORED BY NEENAH This summer, to give designers an opportunity to become better acquainted with digital printing technology — as well as digital papers that can enhance design projects and solutions — GDUSA once again conducted our “Digital Print Cover Competition.” The challenge: to design a cover of GDUSA magazine. Neenah is a natural sponsor given its rich variety of paper colors and textures for digital printing applications. The winner and honorable mentions, displayed here, were selected from hundreds of entries. The criteria: overall visual appearance, effective communication, and successful integration of the design with a selection from the Neenah digital paper collection. ABOUT THE WINNER Don Carter is an award-winning art/creative director based in West Hartford CT. A graduate of Paier College of Art, Don has over thirty five years of experience creating and designing campaigns with Connecticut advertising agencies. For the past fifteen years, he has been leading the creative efforts at Adams & Knight in Avon CT. Wanting to step out from behind the computer, Don developed his own 3-D illustration style using foam board, drywall compound and acrylic paint which led to him illustrating seven picture books for Knopf and Roaring Brook Press (four of which he also wrote). During his time illustrating books, Don used his new business pitching skills to land and create two animated interstitial series with Playhouse Disney, Happy Monster Band and DanceA-Lot-Robot. Most recently, a life-long love of birds and illustration have come together in recreating Audubon’s Birds of America series in his own simplified, modern flat art graphic style (under the name Edgar Allan Slothman).
You can see more of Don’s illustration work at cargocollective.com/doncarter
ABOUT THE WINNING COVER “I love the look of combining bold, graphic illustrations with the realism of photography. That juxtaposition of the two styles seems to really make the art come alive. As this example shows, the majority of my work involves animals of some kind (ok, I’ll admit it, mostly birds). This non-bird character, Octavious, was part of pitch for a children’s animated television series. The subtly-toned tile background was added to show off the printability of Neenah’s digital papers.” Don envisioned the cover printed on Neenah’s CLASSIC CREST® Cover SOLAR WHITE 100C (270 g/m2) 13.5pt | Stipple Digital.
G D U SA 49