A graphic designer from Sylvan Lake will have her design featured on a limited edition Kokanee beer can next year.
Jen Crane, who works at 3M Trim-Line in Red Deer, entered the contest on Facebook earlier in the summer and was chosen as one of six finalists to go to Whistler, B.C., last weekend.
Public voting decided the top three designs for the Crank the Can contest and Crane’s design, along with those of two B.C. artists were chosen. Crane found out she’d won on Saturday night during a live web event.
“It was such a great experience,” Crane said.
“We were in front of thousands and thousands of cheering people. Everybody was just excited to be there so it was really fun. It’s nice to be able to show off my work and do something to represent Kokanee, which is a great company.”
The beer cans will be sold in 2010 as part of a limited edition Kokanee Crankworx series. Crankworx is an annual mountain biking festival in Whistler that is sponsored by Kokanee.
Crane’s design features a group of people dancing along the bottom of the can, a mountain in the middle and a mountain biker flying through the air.
“I wanted to do something bold and colourful and show the vibe of Crankworx,” Crane said. “I’ve got some people on the bottom rocking it out down there because there is a music festival that goes with it as well. I just wanted something really distinctive and different.”
Kokanee covered Crane’s $2,500 trip to Crankworx from Friday to Sunday, which included hotel and a VIP pass to all of the Crankworx events over the past weekend.
When she isn’t doing graphic design work, Crane likes to take photographs and paint.
“I really love to paint with acrylics, usually large scale, very bright, colourful, dramatic work, but I have a 22-pound pure white furball of a cat who loves to get into anything that I’m doing so I’ve realized that acrylic and white Persian fur don’t jive well together,” Crane said.
sobrien@www.reddeeradvocate.com