In 2017, I decided to enter a condom design competition to see if I still had what it took to be a graphic designer. For a long time, I haven’t done anything graphic design related since I settled for a permanent job back in July 2013. I submitted three designs and the cool thing about it is that one of them ended up being in the final cut.

The concept for “When Two Become One” is that I was thinking about the Spice Girls (with the same name) when I was making the design. I purposely made the characters androgonous because I wanted to acknowledge that there are people out there who don’t identify as the gender they were assigned to. The design choice was also inspired by a fan made pixel art of Scott Pilgrim vs The World.

To my surprise, I received an email stating that I won the staff pick. They gave me a year’s worth of condoms with my design on it and a $100.00 check. Yes, I didn’t win the grand prize, but the true reward is the fact that the staff from One Condom saw my value as an artist.

What did I do with the condoms? I pass them out during art fairs. Side note – I get asked that question all the time.