Students wins Dolphin Dip logo contest

“I was thinking about SpongeBob,” said Topsail High School eleventh grader Ashley Gasper about her inspiration for the winning Dolphin Dip t-shirt logo for 2007.

Since its inception, this is event coordinator Brian Moxey’s first time commissioning the high school to design a new logo for the Dolphin Dip’s t-shirts - an event that warrants the urge to display proof of participation.

“Ashley took the old logo and integrated it… it felt like a good t-shirt,” said Moxey, who awarded Gasper $100 for her original design.

Close to 40 students entered the competition with watercolors, paintings and drawings from art classes, alongside digital logos from Robert Meador’s Digital Media Class.

“This is my first attempt at a graphics class; I took it for fun,” said Gasper. “I spent one week thinking about it (the design), but it took three weeks to make it.”

Meador has been teaching digital media classes for five years at Topsail High School.

“I was teaching them a technique on how to do a t-shirt, 12 by 12, from thumbnail sketches,” explained Meador. “Using a mouse and shaping tools, they added color and built the designs.”

While this is the first year for the Dolphin Dip design contest, Meador’s students are no strangers to creating winning designs - another one of Meador’s students won the SunFest logo design contest.

“More recently, students created designs honoring Veterans Day using blending techniques in Photoshop. Some were displayed at the county library,” Meador explained.

In addition, in celebration of the track team winning at state level, students designed and produced 150 t-shirts in-house.

Next to Apex, Topsail High School is the only other school piloting such a graphics class in the state.

“These guys are pioneers,” said Meador. “Next year, with the new building, it will become a real course.”

Expected to be completed in December of 2008, the new building will house a green screen room, a broadcast news studio with a computer and audio room, three-point lighting and silkscreen and overlay capabilities.

Both Meador and his wife and Gasper plan to take the plunge into the frosty waters on January 1, at noon at the Roland Avenue beach access in Surf City. Each New Year’s Day, the Dolphin Dip Foundation brings people together to celebrate life and cleanse their souls by taking a dip in the ocean. Participants raise pledge money for their swim, meet at the beach at 10:30 a.m. for entertainment and count down to noon when they run into the ocean.

Proceeds benefit the Lower Cape Fear Hospice & LifeCareCenter, which provides professional health care and comfort to people with life-limiting illnesses and offers hope, support and education.

To register or for more information about the Dolphin Dip Extravaganza and how to order merchandise - shirts, towels, robes and more - contact Brian Moxey at 910-526-3788 or e-mail moxey@bellsouth.net.