55DSL sponsors Cut&Paste's 2009 Digital Design Tournament

Cut&Paste Digital Design Tournament 2007 from Cut&Paste on Vimeo.

From my inbox:

55DSL is a proud global sponsor of Cut&Paste’s 2009 Digital Design Tournament. Cut&Paste, an innovative design company, is looking for talented designers to represent their city in two fast-paced, single-elimination rounds in 3D and one round for Motion, each with a unique design theme and set time limit. The annual global tournament is set to zip across 16 cities this year, from February through June 2009, and this year for the first time ever, all of the winners (that’s all 48 of them) will be thrown together for the first-ever GLOBAL CHAMPIONSHIP. You win your city, and we'll fly you to New York to go up against the world!

Cut&Paste is challenging designers from various backgrounds and nations across the map to dig deep and design their way into the spotlight. The annual Call for Competitors is now open, with two deadlines: January 14 for cities in North America, and February 6 for the Europe and Asia/Pacific regions.

55DSL is so excited to be one of the global sponsors of this competition, so please let all of your graphic design friends , family, and readers know about this amazing opportunity! Attached to this email is the Call for Competitors official press release. Also, you can find everything you need to know about the contest and global sponsors at CutandPaste.com

My take
Diesel and 55DSL have always been great at being patrons of the arts as a branding vehicle. Much as if they were sponsoring athletes, they work with both established, well-known artists and up-and-comers through projects like this one. This is the blueprint for success, and the results speak for themselves in the case of Diesel. I can't think of too many comparable clothing brands that have roots as deep as theirs are in the art and design world.

Please vote for my 55DSL contest submissions

Just when you were wondering if I could jock 55DSL any harder, I spent a few hours this weekend on some submissions for the 55DSL logo remix contest they're doing in conjunction with Cut&Paste. If you have a minute, please take a look at my submissions and vote for them (2 of them are above, there are 5 or 6 more). I would be so stoked to win that I'm not 100% sure I would survive the excitement!

The rules are pretty simple: all entries must use 55DSL's colors, some element that refers to the shield in their existing logo, and should preserve the existing aspect ratio. As you can probably guess, my biggest influences as a graphic designer are Swiss modernism and West Coast graffiti. Put the two together and you have what you see above, for better or for worse.

View/vote for my submissions here.