Awards
Awards
2022 Embrace the Brace Design Competition
Embrace the Brace 2022 was a nationwide competition where artists designed repeating patterns to be printed on scoliosis braces for the Friddles Orthopedic Company. I submitted two patterns and won both the silver and bronze awards!
Silver Award: Triangulum
The competition guidelines stated that the submitted designs needed to be simple, have a pastel color palette, and appeal to tweens (10-15 year olds.)
Y2K and vaporwave came back in a big way, so that was my starting point. That and the ubiquitous glory of the classic Jazz Solo Cup. I combined hand-drawn squiggle elements with triangles and other geometric shapes and voila: a totally rad pattern!
Bronze Award: Celestial Dream
I submitted a second pattern that would appeal to young fans of outer space and astrology. I was careful to not include any real zodiac signs. Although astrology is popular, 12 signs are just too many for a pattern that needed to be simple.
As a private joke, this design also includes the Triangulum constellation: an inexplicable favorite of mine. There’s something charming about the fact that a simple triangle has survived for centuries and stuck around as an officially designed constellation. The triangle is the strongest geometric shape, so the Triangulum elements on both patterns can be a little symbol of strength for the people who end up wearing them.