Design Contest for the New NYC Condom Wrapper

There are two things in life that I am pretty sure I will never be great at. Singing is one. I got kicked out of voice lessons in high school which shows you how horrible I was; the voice coach could have easily kept milking my mom for each lesson but it was too hard on her ears. The second thing is art. I attempted an oil painting course in college and the Gustav Klimt painting I tried to recreate ended up looking like somebody ate gold paint and then vomited all over a canvas. Luckily, there are many other people out there that can make masterpieces out of oil, ink, computers and even trash. If you are one of these artists who can easily spill your mind’s images onto paper, then you probably would love to hear about a contest currently being held in New York City. What is the design for? Why condom wrappers, of course.

In an effort to compel New York City residents to wear condoms correctly and consistently, the Health Department has distributed free condoms since 1971. In fact, in 2005, the Health Department created a website for community service organizations to order free condoms in bulk. The effort proved to be a tremendous success as condom distribution skyrocketed from 250,000 to 1.5 million with the new initiative. On Valentine’s Day in 2007, NYC set a new precedent with a campaign that featured a NYC Gotham-styled condom wrapper. Within half a year, condom distribution for the city ballooned to an average of more than 3 million condoms each month. A year later, Yves Béhar, a well-known industrial designer, was tasked to create a new look for the NYC Condom as well as dispensers that were placed in over 200 locations throughout the city.

Now, to ramp up condom distribution and to promote the consistent and correct use of condoms in the new decade, the New York City health department is seeking artists from all over to design the new condom wrapper that will be featured on hundreds of thousands of distributed condom wrappers. Talk about getting your name and your art out to a multitude of people in one fell swoop. The entire public is invited to submit their art designs for this limited-edition condom wrapper. The city has been consistent in redesigning the condom wrappers in order to keep the initiative fresh and current. In fact, the campaign has been working like a charm since the number of condoms distributed in 2002 was 3 million and that number has grown to 40 million with Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration. According to the health commissioner, local officials want to “keep people excited” about the condom initiative. The deadline to submit new designs for the condom wrapper is January 22nd.