Jordan Allyn photos
The winning designs, by Bree Brennan and Rohan Green.
Brennan: “It’s nice that people can look at the shirt and see themselves in it.”
While many submissions to a New Haven-themed t‑shirt competition featured pizza iconography, the two winners highlighted the Q Bridge and planting seeds — as opposed to thin-crust ah-beetz.
So culminated on Wednesday a competition that design firm Atelier Cho Thompson and East Rock/Fair Haven Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith organized back in January with the intention of fostering community pride.
A council of judges voted on their favorite prints, with designs by Bree Brennan and Rohan Green tying for first place. Thanks to a NHE3 grant from the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, the two winners will each receive a $500 award. Their designs will also be printed on 100-plus shirts to be made available for purchase.
Bree Brennan’s winning design depicts young people gardening and focuses on community stewardship. Rohan Green’s award-winning submission centers on the Q bridge.
The downtown branch of the New Haven Free Public Library hosted an event Wednesday showcasing all of the design submissions. Though the judges had already selected two winning designs, the Community Choice Prize is still up for grabs. New Haveners have until Saturday to vote at the library. The Community Choice Prize winner’s design will not get screen-printed, but the artist will receive a cash gift.
“People care about this place, invest in this place, and there’s just a wealth of pride here,” Smith said at Wednesday’s showcase. “And so we were interested in what kinds of projects can we build to cultivate that pride. And part of that is artistry.”
“And we’re also a city that really punches above our weight in terms of artists,” she continued. “We have so many individuals who utilize design to express their love of place.” Smith said she’d like to host a similar competition next year.
Alexander Casimiro, a music professor at Southern Connecticut State University, had 40 minutes to kill Wednesday afternoon. So he popped over to the public library — and stumbled upon the t‑shirt design showcase.
His sister, a librarian in Springfield, Mass., told him libraries are one of the few public spaces where there’s no expectation to spend money. As a result, Casimiro tries to take advantage of the resource. He recently attended a business card-making workshop at the library and proudly displayed his final product to this reporter. It features an original illustration of a drummer made for him by his landlord. Casimiro printed 50 copies of the business card for free at the workshop.
On Wednesday, he had no idea he would be walking into New Haven’s inaugural T‑Shirt Design Competition Showcase. “This is completely serendipitous and random,” Casimiro said.
After giving the walls a scan, he said, “I mean, it seems like pizza is a common thread.”
“You can’t go directly to pizza, cause that’s New Haven. That’s what they expect,” said Ben Melendez, who submitted a design to the competition. “You have to kind of go against the grain.”
Melendez works as a graphic designer for Thirteen Fit Apparel. He brought his mom to Wednesday’s showcase. “She’s always got to see my stuff,” said Melendez.
One of the winners of the competition, Brennan, is a graphic designer for a Norwalk-based marketing agency called Hatch 130. “It felt nice to do this because it’s community-based,” she said about the t‑shirt design competition.
She said she sought to capture a community-building spirit in her design. For her, that took the form of people sewing seeds and growing plants, with the city emerging behind them.
“It’s nice that people can look at the shirt and see themselves in it,” said Brennan, who will most likely use the cash prize to invest in more art supplies.
The other winner of the competition, Rohan, is a senior graphic design student at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU).
Following Wednesday’s event, the organizers plan to print around 150 shirts of each of the two final designs with Topdeck Apparel & Promotions screen-printing shop in North Haven. In a month, New Haveners can show off their Elm City pride by purchasing t‑shirts at public markets. All proceeds will go to the Arts Council of Greater New Haven.
Ben Melendez (right) and his mom, at Wednesday's showcase.
