Today (well, tomorrow actually, but I’m blogging about it 30 minutes early because I can) marks the beginning of a 2 week contest to create a design for a Kit case that a local sculptor, John Mishler, will make for you (if you’re the winner, that is). The Kit is yours free if John thinks your design is sweet enough to pick you as the winner. All entries will be available online for everyone to see, including a statement from John about what’s so sweet about the winner’s entry.

I like to think of technology as an art form. Some companies get this (Apple) and some don’t (Microsoft). I also really like the idea of having a Kit that’s actually a piece of art, which they kind of are already. Oddly enough, Goshen’s a hotbed of the arts — in a small, Midwestern town of 35,000, we have an indie theatre; about 15 performance venues, and I’m not just talking about dingy bars, I’m talking about world class concert halls; a clay artists’ guild; a woodworkers’ guild; several galleries; a ton of artists of all kinds (potters, painters, musicians, poets); and a lot of other crazy things. So it seems like a natural fit to have a contest connecting what my company creates with the local creative community.

John Mishler, who I’ve known for several years, has a studio at the Old Bag Factory, an old bag factory (surprise!) converted into artist studios, shops, and galleries. His sculpture’s have been all over the world and are, IMHO, pretty sweet themselves.

The idea for this contest, however, is not just mine, it came about as a result of conversation with Richard at Fresh Arrival after the launch of the Kit. Richard’s helped greatly to get blogs organized to publicize this contest after Gizmodo turned us down (they’ve been recovering from iPhone madness). So we’ll see how this little experiment goes…

More contest details and a list of participating blogs are available here. So go ahead, submit your sweet design! Win a free RedPost/Kit!