HHS student Josh Trask wins design competition for 2018 southern Ontario curling event

The Huntsville Curling Club is hosting the 2018 southern Ontario men’s curling championships. The club needed a logo for the event and it knew just where to turn – Huntsville High School’s grade 11 Media Arts class.

“(The Tankard) will be on arena ice at the Canada Summit Centre and it will bring many visitors to Huntsville,” says Beth Goodhew, Growth and Technology Director at the Huntsville Curling Club. “We needed a way to help promote it and market it so we decided to do a logo contest to see what students could come up with. We had some great submissions and it was difficult to hone it down. And the students listened well to our feedback during several iterations of the design.”

The winning logo had to have a Muskoka feel and incorporate curling into the design. A later requirement was to match it to the event sponsor’s logo – Recharge With Milk.

Student Josh Trask created the design that was eventually chosen by the Club’s committee. His winning logo features a Muskoka chair, a fall leaf and a curling rock. It has been integrated with the Recharge With Milk logo for some of the event’s marketing materials.

“It gave us the Muskoka feel we were looking for,” says Goodhew. “It was clear and the message popped right out at us.”

Media Arts teacher Stephen Morton says that these types of real world projects are great experience for students.

“It was interesting because it was an exercise in design by committee,” says Morton. “A lot of times when you have a client you have to deal with a lot of people at the other end of the table who have their design influences and changes.” The initial designs submitted by the students were very corporate in feel and the feedback from the curling club was that they needed to have more of a Muskoka feel. “We sent the kids back to the table to redesign them.”

The colours in Trask’s original design were altered to match those of the event’s corporate sponsor.

“It was a good learning opportunity for the kids to see a real world situation with real world consequences and real world results where they had to go back and forth with the client,” says Morton. “Those are the kinds of projects I like to bring in to prepare them for the real world situations they are going to be getting into.”

Morton’s class often takes on design projects from local charities or service organizations who might not otherwise have the means for a professionally designed logo or flyer.

Josh Trask’s logo design at left has been integrated with the Recharge With Milk logo for the 2018 event

Trask says the contest prize – a $100 gift certificate for The Source – sparked his interest and there was a friendly competition among he and his Media Arts classmates to see who could produce the best design.

Despite his strong design skills, Trask plans a career in computer coding. He now has an impressive achievement to add to his portfolio.

The Ontario Men’s Recharge With Milk Tankard is the annual event that determines the Southern Ontario Men’s Provincial Curling Champion. The winner of the 2018 Recharge with Milk Men’s Tankard will represent Team Ontario at the Tim Hortons Brier in Regina Saskatchewan, March 3-11, 2018.

The 2018 Tankard will take place at the Canada Summit Centre from January 30 to February 4, 2018 with 10 teams competing from across southern Ontario. Qualifying teams each year are decided through four regional qualifiers, two provincial qualifiers, and a challenge round.

The event will require several hundred volunteers. “You don’t need to know anything about curling to volunteer,” says Goodhew. “A lot of it will be logistics and moving people effectively throughout the venue.”

For more information on the 2018 Tankard and how to volunteer, visit 2018tankard.ca.

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