Miami Designer Wins OBEY Competition

New World School Of The Arts own Graphic Design student Brandon Sweet took the time to participate on the 3rd Annual Art Contest presented by OBEY and Metropark, and won! The contest consisted in designing a print for a special edition T-shirt to be released online and sold at Metropark stores around the country. An interview by Barbie Bertisch from Life.is fashion follows! Get the shirt here: MetroparkUSA

First time I heard, or should I say read, about the Obey/Metropark Contest, was during my month long visit in Argentina. Being a fan of Obey and Shepard Fairey’s work, I bulked up several t-shirts and took them with me. Down in Buenos Aires, nobody had ever seen or heard about Fairey’s work or Obey, and they were all (people around me; whether at Hip Hop classes, clubs, restaurants, or at the ever-so trendy Palermo Hollywood design district) amazed and in love with the graphics and message of such designs. I was actually online shopping with my aunt, who went bananas for the t-shirts, and being a fashionista and designer herself, wanted one of each in every color. As I was showing her the different graphic tshirts being sold at Metropark online store, I came across the 3rd Annual Art Contest presented by OBEY and Metropark.

Creating a winning design was not easy. I can create logos and stationary packages for clients or as a class assignment very fast compared to the grueling hours spent researching the subject matter. From military inspired heraldry, coats of arms, minimalistic and modern symbols, to monograms and typographical designs, the graphics on the OBEY tshirts vary tremendously. And, believe it or not, one would get to dead ends, finding that most of what you could think of, either it had been done before or did not fit the OBEY line (…) I’ve always been inspired and attracted to the juxtaposition of images, whether it is in photography, which is my medium of choice, or in graphics, I get fueled up by double exposure images and overlapping/juxtaposed images. I always tend to make my designs logo-like and very symmetrical. (STRONG BELIEVER THAT SYMMETRY=BEAUTY!). So, I started playing around with the Andre the Giant stencil-like design… I had noticed that Fairey had used skulls in other designs, but never made it an iconic element, in other words, it had appeared as the face of a subject and as part of elaborate designs, but he had never applied it so prominently. So I thought it was interesting how the skull design and the stencil design overlapped perfectly, adding depth to the ever-evolving iconic OBEY Giant design. Plus, the whole look of broken up vector art, stencil-based/originated/inspired, went great with the OBEY philosophy.

Well, the main prize was having the tshirt design being reproduced and sold in Metropark stores nation-wide and online, as part of Obey Clothing. Aside from that, $400 cash prize/licensing fee for the winning design provided by OBEY, $300 in OBEY Merchandising, including a signed Shepard Fairey print, a Supply & Demand book and OBEY clothing, and $500 Metropark gift card provided by Metropark. There is also the possibility of attending the Grand Opening of Shepard Fairey’s new mural during this year’s Art Basel and meeting him at the event.

The single, most important piece of advice I can give fellow designers is to research and look around for such competitions or opportunities. I know that this won’t be the end of my relationship with the Obey Team. I would obviously suggest to take chances! No one ever knows what will happen once you submit your work for an art and design competition. Actually, the worst thing that could happen is to get rejected and possibly get some feedback, from which one can learn and grow.  Also, you should always be paying attention to issues and conversations around you. By eves dropping is how I ultimately got the chance to create t-shirt designs for almost every single sports team in back when I was in high school. Finally, some quick ones are to voice your opinion, and fight to be heard and seen. There’s plenty of competitions and contests out there, looking for the next big thing… All it takes is commitment and will to find that one competition that’s going to make you famous, or at least well known! Like I said before, this contest is annually… Yes, people! It’s done every year… So start sketching. I already have myself! Winner two years in a row? We will see!