Integrated Marketing Campaign Challenge

This Year's Theme:

Print: The Original Social Media.

In the real world, great brands don’t rely on one single design—they create connected experiences. This challenge is all about creating a brand experience, giving you the opportunity to showcase both your creativity and your strategic thinking.

Your Future in Graphic Communications

Purpose:

Create One Campaign. Four Designs. $1,000 Prize.

The purpose of this challenge is to encourage students to explore integrated marketing by creating a marketing campaign where four designs work together to communicate one clear idea.

Using the theme “Print: The Original Social Media,” students will develop a cohesive campaign across four different formats: a sticker, t-shirt, box, and poster.

The challenge encourages students to think beyond a single piece and consider how a central creative idea can be adapted across different applications while maintaining a clear and recognizable campaign identity.

Design Direction:

Develop a creative concept that can be carried across all four designs. Each piece should have its own purpose while contributing to the overall campaign.

Your four designs do not need to be identical. Instead, consider how colors, typography, imagery, patterns, shapes, or other visual elements can create connections between the pieces.

Submit original designs for all four contest categories—sticker, t-shirt, box, and poster—that work together as a unified marketing campaign centered on the theme "Print: The Original Social Media." Push your creativity, build your portfolio, and show us how print connects people in powerful ways.
Students may only submit one design from each contest category for the integrated marketing campaign challenge.
This challenge is limited to post-secondary students only.

Creating a Cohesive Campaign

Think of your campaign as one big idea expressed in four different ways.

A strong campaign will:

Share a common idea. Each piece should connect to your campaign concept and the theme “Print: The Original Social Media.”
Feel like they belong together. Use elements such as colors, fonts, imagery, patterns, shapes, or other visual details to create connections between the four designs.
Work for their specific format. Adapt your design to the purpose and format of each piece. The designs don't need to use the exact same artwork or layout.
Tell a connected story. Each design should work on its own while contributing to the overall message of your campaign.
Be recognizable as one campaign. Imagine seeing each piece separately—in a store, online, on a poster, or being used by someone. Would you recognize that they are part of the same campaign?

Remember: Cohesive doesn’t mean identical. Your four designs should work together visually and communicate one clear campaign idea, while giving each piece a purpose of its own.

Judging Criteria

Judges will consider:

Campaign Concept: Is there a clear, creative idea behind the campaign?
Cohesion: Do the four designs clearly feel like part of the same campaign?
Execution: Is each design thoughtfully adapted to its specific format?
Theme: Does the campaign creatively communicate “Print: The Original Social Media”?
Overall Design: Are the designs visually engaging, original, and well executed?

Submission Requirements:

Students must be enrolled in a post-secondary school to participate.
Submit an original design for all four contest categories—sticker, t-shirt, box, and poster. Design entries must follow the submission criteria given for each individual contest.
Submit an elevator pitch that is less than 200 words, along with the 4 chosen designs that were submitted for each design contest in a PDF format. File types other than PDF’s are ineligible.
Designs must include a message that relates to the theme: Print: The Original Social Media.
The winner of the challenge must submit all PDF files required for reproduction. Files become the property of The FGCE.
Use of AI: Students are highly encouraged to generate original concepts, artwork and editing using the digital and analog tools available to them. We appreciate the use of AI as a resource in the creative process but expect submissions to be created by individuals tapping into their own library of skills. Artwork/designs extracted from the internet with no artistic image editing will be disqualified.

Due Date:

PDF entries are due by Friday, February 19, 2027 at 11:59 p.m. PT

Judging will be in March, and the winner will be notified by April 2, 2027.

Naming Your Final PDF Files:

POST SECONDARY STUDENTS: Firstname_lastname_schoolname_challange_2026_PostSecondary

Disclaimer and Contest Rules:

All Design Contest Files submitted become the property of The FGCE and could be used to promote our Student and Educator engagement, which includes outbound communications about our FGCE Scholarship and Grant Programs. We may request native files. Attribution to the designer will be given on all uses unless otherwise requested. Design file imagery could be applied to social media, website, printed materials, t-shirts and other communication and fundraising products.

Entries submitted with missing elements and/or incorrect specifications will be disqualified.

Contest will reopen Sept. 14th, 2026 and will close Feb. 19th, 2027.

Judging will begin March 2027 and the winner will be notified by April 2nd, 2027

If you have any questions, please email dianne.bullas@thefgce.com or call 503-572-6610.

2026–2027 APPLICATIONS

Will Reopen Sept. 14th, 2026

Deadline: February 19th , 2027

Review: Begins March 2027

Winners Announced: April 2nd, 2027

AT A GLANCE

Requirements

Integrated Marketing Campaign design entries must include the following elements and meet the following requirements:

GET STARTED