Image by Ken Hawkins/TheDigitelImage by 20090611-food-wine.jpg Don't steal my poster design! I poured second upon seconds of hard work into it.

The BB&T Charleston Food + Wine Festival is once again looking for poster designs, this time for its 2010 festival -- you could win $1,000.

Here's the quick overview of what's happening:

Artists who are 18 years or older and residents of the Tri-county area may submit original works for consideration in the design contest of the 2010 poster. These designs are then judged by a panel representing both the culinary and art communities. Artists’ designs should illustrate Charleston’s unique culinary culture and exhibit characteristics that would appropriately represent the Festival, while highlighting the 5th year anniversary of the organization. When creating the final design, the artist should keep in mind that the poster design will be used in many marketing and retail materials. Keeping with the theme for the past three years, artists are asked to incorporate into the design the signature wine stain similar to the one that has appeared on past posters.

Entries should consist of the following; incomplete entries will not be considered:

1. Complete Entry Form
2. All media acceptable: winner’s poster to be reproduced and printed by four-color process. Art
submissions should be 18” wide x 24 high”, mounted on foam core. Vertical orientation (where the overall width is smaller than the overall height) is recommended—keep in mind the proportions of standard retail posters, as well as the Festival poster. The official Festival logo will be added to the winning design by the Festival and should be considered during the design process.
3. Please DO NOT add the Festival logo or dates in your artwork, the Festival will be responsible for that portion of the design.
4. When possible digital submissions are preferred. Digital artwork should be submitted in layers.
5. Official Festival wine stain, which can be a digital downloaded from the website OR hand produced.
6. Brief biography of the artist

You can get all the rules and details, and get the wine-stain graphic over at Charleston Magazine.

You can also e-mail art [at] charlestonwineandfood.com with questions.