Oak Hill, WV (WOAY) – Kim Bowen’s pointillism design is the winner of this year’s Bridge Day poster contest and will represent West Virginia’s largest single-day festival this fall.
The outcome was settled by a public online vote, and organizers say Bowen’s entry edged the field by just 10 votes.
Copies of the winning poster will be available for purchase at Bridge Day on Oct. 17.
Tim Naylor, executive assistant with the New River Gorge Convention and Visitors Bureau, said he believes the hand-drawn approach connected with voters because they are craving authenticity.
“It’s literally just dots drawn on paper turned into an image. And I think with all the AI stuff you see going on, I think it really just resonated with people to see something that was purely done by hand. You know, we had a lot of digital art, which none of it was AI based on my best knowledge. But I really think people were really just yearning for something that was natural this year. So that’s why I think this one was the winner.”
