Sarasota Rising’s The Living Arts Festival is holding its yearly poster contest for next year’s festival in 2025. Artists will have the opportunity to compete in creating an original poster for its annual weeklong celebration. The Living Arts Festival – Sarasota is an interdisciplinary arts festival like no other slated to have its second year in November 2025. The festival aims to broaden the region’s audience for the arts in all its “flavors,” emphasizing performing arts while offering visual arts exhibitions, family-friendly events, live music, and more. The winning poster will be utilized in conjunction with Sarasota Rising’s logo for all festival branding and merchandise, featuring its imagery on hats, t-shirts, pins, bags, and all sorts of great festival swag, as well as on the festival’s website and brochure. With this in mind, portions or pieces of it need to accommodate the Sarasota Rising’s branding text, logo, and the specifics needed to promote the festival. Thought should be given as to how elements could be used in isolation in print and electronically, on merchandise, websites, clothing, etc., to create a strong, effective, memorable, and flexible identity. As for the imagery in the piece itself, it should capture the spirit of Sarasota’s arts community; the initial focus being that of the Performing Arts: Dance, Opera, Theater, Circus Arts, Choral and beyond, but as an inclusive festival, there will be room for the visual arts, fine arts and even culinary arts to be displayed and elevated during this annual celebration. Choosing the winner will involve a rigorous selection process, allowing artists whose pieces the judges feel have merit to receive notes for resubmission. The criteria that will go towards deciding on the winning poster include the imagery used, how the festival’s messages are conveyed, and the imagery’s ability to draw attention to the community and its many creative facets. Sarasota Rising encourages all students of the arts, designers, and creatives in the greater Sarasota Manatee area to participate in this opportunity. In addition to the notoriety from their work being displayed throughout the festival and during its promotions, the selected artist will be awarded a $1,000 stipend. Submissions are being accepted until July 26, 2024, and a winner will be announced in August. The grand reveal will occur at one of their events this fall. For all contest details and submission requirements, please visit sarasotarising.org/poster-contest.