CSTS 2020 Annual Art Contest

Vote in our CSTS 2020 Art Contest thru Friday, January 31, 2020!

Over the years, Can’t Stop The Serenity has raised more than a million dollars for Equality Now. We can do even more good works, but only if people show up! That’s where you come in. Since we’ve been doing this for well over a decade now, the novelty factor has worn off, which means it’s more important than ever before to build excitement for CSTS. Having new and eye-catching CSTS promotional artwork designed each year is a critical tool for raising awareness about the charitable events, building enthusiasm, and getting people into theaters around the world.

The Complete Rules for the Annual CSTS Promotional Art Contest

Contest Entry Dates

The CSTS 2020 Art Contest will accept submissions from Sunday, December 22, 2019 through the deadline of Sunday, January 19, 2020 (until midnight PST).

The Shiny Stuff

The winner’s artwork will be featured prominently throughout our website and social media outlets, and on any T-shirts, posters and promos created for the annual CSTS season.

The Goal

Fundamentally, the CSTS promotional artwork is a marketing tool for the year’s events. The art needs to appeal to people who already know about CSTS, to Browncoats who haven’t heard of us and the broad market of non-fans, as well as drawing people into learning more about the events and Browncoat fandom. It should help inform the audience about the charitable, fan-driven and global nature of CSTS, and promote awareness of Equality Now.

The Rules

All artwork you submit must be your own. If you plan to incorporate any stock imagery in your entry, you must have documentation showing that you have permission to use and reproduce it. It should go without saying, but we’ll say it anyway. Don’t use copyrighted artwork in your submission. This includes copyrighted or trademarked Firefly, Serenity and Dr. Horrible assets or fan-created work that is not your own.
Because this is about Equality Now and Peace in the ‘Verse, there should be no overt violence portrayed within the art.
The winner’s artwork will be used by CSTS for the purposes of the upcoming year’s CSTS Screenings and events, and for additional promotional purposes until the upcoming year’s artwork has been chosen. No other compensation will be given to the winner.
There is a limit of 3 submissions per artist.
While Universal has no problem with CSTS running this contest, it should be noted that Universal in no way officially approves the artwork (i.e. it is not their official creation for Serenity) and that the sale and promotion thereof is solely at the discretion of CSTS. Please note that the inspiration for your artwork must come from movie Serenity and not the TV Series – Firefly or other Whedonverse properties.
Recognizing that it has always been difficult choosing which piece to vote for, we invite artists to resubmit art they have entered before. It will count as one of your possible three submissions.Be sure to update the art to reflect the 2020 season, including our new logo.

Artwork Guidelines

Each artwork entry must include the following:
- An isolated version of the design (no background images)
- A black and white version of the design
- A mockup of the design as a poster (may contain additional text and artwork). Please consider a layout that includes space for local event coordinators to add specifics for their events, such as date, time, location, prices, URL, etc
- A mockup of the design as a T-shirt (may contain additional text and artwork)
- A mockup of the design as an embroidered patch (may contain additional text and artwork)
You must use the official CSTS logo and have it displayed prominently within the piece you are submitting. You can download various versions of the logo below. These are provided as outlined files, and the official color values are provided.
The winning design may be used in many different ways, including, but not limited to stationery, patches, stickers, web banners, icons, etc. The more flexible your design, the better.
We will accept any artwork in almost any format: vectorized, rasterized (bitmapped) so as to make it as easy as possible for people to enter. We recommend a vector based format such as the ones listed below but will also accept raster formats if need be.
Because of this, we reserve the right to translate / digitize / clean up any artwork we get to a format and minimum level of quality (resolution / smoothness) needed to look good in all areas that it will be used (web, print, merchandising, video, etc)
You can create a full color piece of artwork, but it is recommended that you create a design that lends itself well to being rendered down to four color, three color, grayscale, AND black and white as this makes it easier to use the design in the various mediums cheaply and accurately (Screen Printing, Dye Sub Printing, Inkjet Printing, Web, etc…) Also, we would recommend using the RGB color space and not the CMYK color space for your digital creation. Transparency / using an alpha channel is allowed and encouraged if needed. Anti-aliasing will be applied if necessary.
We will make our best effort to remain true to the original artwork, but for best results, least amount of work for us, and to guarantee highest possible quality, we recommend the following vector formats (in order from best to worst):
- AI – Adobe Illustrator File
- SVG – Scalable Vector Graphics
- EPS – Encapsulated Postscript File (Vector Mode, not Bitmap Mode)
- Most other vector formats such as PDF, SWF, EMF and WMF will also be accepted but are not preferred.
If you prefer to submit your artwork in a raster (bitmapped) based format, we will still accept it, but we may translate it to a vector based format if, for example, the resolution is too low. For raster based submissions, we recommend a print dpi setting such as between 300 dpi and 600 dpi and we recommend the following raster formats (in order from best to worst):
- PSD – Photoshop Document
- XCF – G.I.M.P. Document
- TIF – Tagged Image File
- Most other raster formats such as PNG, BMP, JPG, and GIF will also be accepted but are not preferred.
If you do not have access to or experience with professional graphic design programs such as Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop and do not wish to purchase any specifically for this contest, we would recommend using Inkscape (found at www.inkscape.org) for Vector based formats. If you must use raster based, we recommend the GNU Image Manipulation Program aka G.I.M.P. (found at www.gimp.org) or GIMPshop (found at www.gimpshop.com), a version of GIMP tailored to people who are familiar with Adobe Photoshop. All of these programs are legal to download and use free of charge.

Official CSTS Logo

You may download the CSTS Logo in the following formats for use in your submission for the CSTS Promotional Art Contest (in order of preferred format):

Serenity Logo color values:

Outer Ring: RGB: 226/127/65 – CMYK: 9/60/84/0
Inner Disc: RGB: 254/216/85 – CMYK: 1/13/78/0
Kanji: RGB: 135/23/26 – CMYK: 28/100/100/33

Equality Now Logo color values:

Sky Blue : RGB: 22/164/ 197 – CMYK: 76/16/16/0
Navy Blue : RGB: 18/53/91 – CMYK: 100/82/38/31

Submitting Your Entry

Submissions must be received by the published deadline in order to be considered for this contest. This deadline for each year’s contest will be published on the front page of this website in news posts related to the contest.
You may submit up to three pieces for consideration.
All entries and questions should be submitted to artdirector@cantstoptheserenity.com.
If you need to mail your submission, email artdirector@cantstoptheserenity.com for instructions and a mailing address.
All entries which meet the guidelines will be posted on the official CSTS website, to be voted on by the general public. The voting period for each year’s contest will be published on the front page of this website in news posts related to the contest. In the event of a tie, the Global Steering Committee and Global Team will choose the winning piece.