2026 Vintage Poster Contest
FLOWER POWER 2026 POSTER CONTEST
This year, the State of the Rockies project invites students to submit a digital image of an original 1970s vintage-style poster that captures our attention and includes a message or "motto" that calls on us to support today's conservation actions and policies for environmental protection. Please note that this is a updated version of our traditional ‘national parks slogan’ themed poster contest.
Students are asked to take a stand on a social, political, or economic issue that impacts our region and is addressed in the 2025 Conservation in the West poll. Creativity is bound only by the topics covered in the poll and the contest guidelines.
PROJECT BACKGROUND + DESCRIPTION
The ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT 1969-1970s
Environmental crises of the 1960s, like the 1969 Santa Barbara, California oil spill and the 1969 Cuyahgoga River fire in Cleveland, Ohio, galvanized public concern and helped pave the way for major environmental legislation. Senator (D) Edmund Muskie and Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson believed the way to improve US quality of life was by improving environmental quality for Americans. Eye-popping first photos of the moon taken in 1969 piqued curiosity and renewed wonder and appreciation for our unique planet. Scientists and activists pushed for protections and helped to establish several organizations and laws: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1969, The National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) in 1969, The 1970 Clean Water Act, and Earth Day in 1970. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) and The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich (1968) communicated to the masses the critical state of our natural resources we faced as a nation, and garnered further support for the 1970s environmental movement. Advertising campaign posters were employed to effectively communicate the critical environmental issues of the times to the population while urging citizens and the government to take immediate actions.
Examples of 1970s vintage-style Environmental Activism posters:
Our current federal administration is working to roll back many of the environmental protections put in place decades ago -- alternative energy development and policies, like wind and solar power, have halted. Directives to extract and burn fossil fuel as our chief energy source for the foreseeable future steer us away from finding solutions to attenuate some of the most severe outcomes of planetary warming. How will decisions to roll back, defund, and abolish policies, laws, research, and implementation of conservation and protection management practices affect us? To what extent are we concerned the environmental deregulations will exacerbate the warming of the planet? What immediate steps should we take toward living more sustainably?
The State of the Rockies Conservation in the West Poll surveys people in the 8-state Rocky Mountain region about their attitudes toward public land conservation and other current environmental, social, and political issues we face living in the West.
Voters surveyed in the 2025 State of the Rockies Conservation in the West Poll value the protection of public lands (67%) and elected officials who will address environmental issues like clean water, clean air, and wildlife (85%). No matter the political affiliation, Westerners supported the conservation of public lands and wanted public officials to protect them from drilling (72%) or housing development (86%). The poll consistently demonstrates a growing desire to protect land, water, and air for wildlife and recreation.
Show us the issue for which you stand!
Click on the links below to view the topics and responses to the poll.
Climate Change and the West
Conservation and Public Lands
Energy and Public Lands
Management of Public Lands
Water in the West
Wildlife in the West
Instant Access: 15 years of Rockies poll data made visual
THE CONTEST
ENTER TO WIN!!
1st Place $700 • 2nd Place $500 • 3rd Place $250
The theme of our example poster below is alternative energy. We have updated our 1970s-style environmental poster with an updated by exploring the survey results on energy and climate change. Our mock-up is more of a spoof. Witty text and images are welcome.
In addition to a digital image, your submission must include an explanation (about 150 words) of why or how your contemporary activism motto is relevant to current environmental values of residents reported in our 8-state Rocky Mountain West poll. Your poster theme must be based on a social, political, or environmental topic highlighted in the poll.
Please submit a 150-word justification for choosing the issue you picked — explain to us why, how, and/or what efforts are critical to protect the Rocky Mountain West; actions we should take. Please also submit screen shots of your poster making process. Please send:
- A sketch of your original idea.
- 2-step proof of your process. Please send a screen shot of your work at the beginning and middle stages of your design with the computer software you are using visible in the screenshot. Software programs that you may use: Canva; Adobe Creative Suite, and any other graphic design package.
- Your final image (should be 600dpi jpeg format).
- Your poster justification.
Our Rockies Team's Final Image:
The 2026 letterpress poster was designed from original art created by the
State of the Rockies Creative Team: Theo Casper, '28, Libby Cutler, '25,
Waverly Fisher, '27, Lily Frost, '26, Cyndy Hines, Macy McCauley, MAT '25,
Alison Mueller-Hickler, '26, and Annabel Meyer, '26.
Letterpress promotional poster designed for 2026 Vintage Poster Contest
by Linnea Anderson, Luana Cooper, Olivia Madden, Jeslyn Nguyen,
Jillian Sico, and Gray Simmons at The Press at CC.
NOTE* (Our final poster was created on a letterpress. Yours will be the jpeg image).
Examples of past student 1970s vintage-style Conservation in the West poster submissions
"Wildflowers" 2024 Vintage Poster by Madeline Broadhurst, '25
"Keep it in the Ground" 2022 Vintage Poster by Isabel DeVito, '25
Questions? email chines@coloradocollege.edu
Please submit your entry to chines@coloradocollege.edu by MIDNIGHT on February 9, 2026.
Use CC OneDrive to share large files.
MEET THE JUDGES
Jillian Sico (she/her) is a papermaker, bookbinder, and letterpress printmaker who makes artists’ books under the imprint Frog song Press. She received an MFA in Book Arts from The University of Alabama in 2020, where she focused on letterpress printing, papermaking, and fine bookbinding. She also received an MA in Environmental Anthropology from The University of Georgia in 2013 and a BA from St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD in 2005. Her process is informed and expanded through collaboration and research on culture and ecology. Her work has been exhibited nationally and is held in numerous special and private collections. Jillian currently manages The Press at Colorado College.
Kaitlin Steinfort, '22 (she/her) is a Colorado College alum and former poster printer at The Press at Colorado College. In the summer of 2019, she took a Book Arts and Letterpress course at The Press at Colorado College and worked alongside Aaron Cohick and other students in the press through her senior year. During her final year on campus, Kaitlin combined her passion for environmental protection and education and her love for creating art in the press to help design and create the posters used to advertise the first State of the Rockies poster contest in 2021/2022. Now as an alum, Kaitlin works in the habitat management field and continues to work on her own art in a variety of media, hoping to continue finding and creating ways to use art as a tool for environmental advocacy, protection, and education.
Sponsored by the State of the Rockies Project and supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. For more information, EMAIL Cyndy Hines chines@coloradocollege.edu
GUIDELINES
Contest Criteria
- Efficacy of your conservation motto and justification as they relate to conservation concerns reported by recent Conservation in the West poll findings
- Composition of poster
- Creative use of the historical national park poster style
- Use of color
- Impact of message
COPYRIGHT rules:
Colorado College reserves the right to use all student contest entries for academic and promotional purposes.
Students may use their original artwork in any way they choose but may not include any Colorado College identifiers as part of their original work when selling or promoting their poster creations.
CC stringently adheres to these rules and guidelines of this contest.
FILE SPECIFICATIONS
- Files must be saved as a JPEG/JPG or PNG.
- Posters should be at least 11” x 17”, but can be larger. Choose a size that works for your composition.
- Resolution of files should be 600 dpi (we need high-res files so that we can print them for display).
NEED HELP?
Contact State of the Rockies student project assistant and researcher LIBBY CUTLER, '25
OR
Meghan Rubenstein (mrubenstein@coloradocollege.edu) in the Visual Resource Center!
Meghan and the student staff in the VRC are happy to have people come and learn Adobe on the computers in the VRC.
CC Rolls Vintage Press: Students Help Launch Vintage West Poster Contest
Colorado College students run campus letterpress producing vintage-style posters to help promote the college's State of the Rockies Conservation in the West student vintage poster contest.
Story and video by Eric Ingram, '23.
CC State of the Rockies Vintage Poster Contest: What Makes a Good Poster?
CC vintage press printmakers share their ideas on what a winning poster should include. Learn what to include in your vintage poster contest submission.
Story and video by Eric Ingram, '23.