Forget the primaries, rock this vote: Vans launches online voting today for its seventh annual Vans Custom Culture competition, a national contest designed to give high school students a platform to embrace creative expression while joining a movement to support arts education and foster their school’s art program (donned with the hashtag, #RightToArt).
In partnership with Americans for the Arts, Journeys, Truth, Laguna College of Art and Design and Blick Art Materials, Vans is asking for the public to help select the top five high schools from the 50 semi-finalists (including Station Camp High School, above, and Great Bridge High School, right) who are competing for $50,000 for their school’s art programs, among other rewards. Starting today through May 11, students, teachers, parents, friends and community supporters can visit Vans.com/CustomCulture to see all of the designs and vote for their favorite school. Supporters are invited to vote daily, as each fan is allowed one vote per region per day. The top five finalists will head to Los Angeles in June for a final showcase event featuring celebrity judges, including YouTube personality Maddi Bragg and top chefs Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo behind Los Angeles restaurants Animal, Jon & Vinny’s and Son of a Gun among others, as well as a special musical guest.
“Every year the team at Vans looks forward to seeing the creative and inspiring student submissions. While the task of selecting the top 50 finalists for Vans Custom Culture is never easy, we’re so excited to showcase these designs to the public and have them take part in extending arts education nationally,” offers Fara Howard, vice president of global marketing at Vans. “We continue to be awed and inspired by the level of creativity and dedication the students put in to their submissions and we are so proud to help support arts programming and empower the next generation’s Right to Art.”
As part of the competition, each participating school created four custom designs to represent the Vans “Off The Wall” lifestyle using blank Vans classic footwear as the canvas. From there, an internal Vans team including some of the brand’s designers, as well as employees, narrowed down the selection to the top 50 schools.
