Kenmore seeks artists to design neighborhood mascot Create Our Cardinal winner will receive $500, have design featured regionally
March 18, 2021 (Akron, OH) – Kenmore Neighborhood Alliance is offering $500 to the artist or designer who can best capture Kenmore’s proud, hard-working history and quirky, playful nature in the Create Our Cardinal design contest.
Submissions are due April 1, and the Alliance will choose three finalists for a community vote, which will take place online April 5-12. The cardinal design with the most votes will be announced April 15 and adopted as the Alliance’s mascot “promoting Kenmore both locally and regionally,” said Tina Boyes, Kenmore Neighborhood Alliance’s executive director.
In a February survey, Kenmore Neighborhood Alliance followers overwhelmingly voted the cardinal as their preferred mascot. For more than 100 years, the cardinal represented Kenmore High School as its mascot, outlasting Kenmore’s city status which ended with annexation by Akron in 1929. In 2017, the Akron Public Schools merged Kenmore High School with neighboring Garfield High School, bypassing the cardinal for Garfield’s Golden Ram.
“We hope the new mascot can reignite community pride while reflecting a new generation of creative and innovative Kenmore residents,” Boyes said.
Create Our Cardinal contestants must submit their cardinal as both a front-facing and side-facing design. Entries will be judged on the basis of creativity, originality, composition, simplicity, visual impact and how well they communicate and promote the Kenmore neighborhood. Preferred designs will be fun, friendly, modern and easily applied to any kind of media.
For more information, or to submit a cardinal design, visit betterkenmore.org/cardinal. To receive contest updates, register for the Kenmore Neighborhood Alliance’s e-newsletter at betterkenmore.org/news.
ABOUT KENMORE NEIGHBORHOOD ALLIANCE
Kenmore Neighborhood Alliance is a community development corporation formed in 2016 to preserve, enhance, promote and develop the Kenmore neighborhood in southwest Akron by engaging residents and stakeholders in effecting physical, cultural, artistic, recreational and economic revitalization. For more information, visit www.betterkenmore.org or follow KNA on Twitter or Instagram @kenmoreohio, or on Facebook @betterkenmore.