Teenager's design will go on more than 10,000 Pierce County Library System cards

Forming words such as entertaining, active, and creative and many book titles into an artistically designed word cloud earned Dillon Hadaway, age 14, the winning entry into Pierce County Library System’s teen library card design contest.

Check out his winning artwork at http://www.piercecountylibrary.org/kids-teens/teens/teen-library-card/Default.htm.

The Buckley resident and White River High School student’s winning design will appear on more than 10,000 new library cards for use by teens and all ages, starting Oct. 1, when the Library System launches its fifth annual card drive. Hadaway’s name will appear on the printed cards.

This spring, teenage artists throughout Pierce County vied for the opportunity to design a Pierce County Library card. In all 138 artists submitted creations in colored pencil, pen, paint, camera and computer-generated art.

Professional artists reviewed entries and selected 13 finalists. Pierce County residents cast 3,670 online votes to choose the winning design.

“We are thrilled with the enthusiastic response from the teenagers submitting designs and the public voting on the contest finalists,” said Neel Parikh, executive director for Pierce County Library. “We look forward to teens, ‘tweens and all ages choosing and using the new card at Pierce County Library.”

Hadaway’s winning artwork features a vibrantly colored retro design that crafts together library words, book titles and authors to form a mosaic floral design. He created the computer-generated artwork in Adobe Photoshop as a graphic design project in a school art class with teacher Nick Cochran.

The teen-designed library cards will be available for free, in addition to other designs that the Library offers, during the Library’s annual card drive and for the next two years—until the next teen card contest in 2013. With a Pierce County Library card people get an array of free services, including:

• More than 1.3 million books, movies and more.
• Professional online tutors to help students with homework and adults write resumes.

• Music and audiobooks and e-books to download to home computers and portable devices.
• Time reserved on a computer for up to 48 hours in advance and for up to two hours of use.