Scarborough teen wins election poster contest.
Shaikh Faraz Safder at city hall on Wednesday displays his poster design encouraging voter participation on municipal election day. (Sept. 1, 2010)
Staff photo/MIKE ADLER
He did it for extra credit, and now Shaikh Faraz Safdar's design is in thousands of Toronto campus frosh kits this week.
Its simple design and message were picked for a difficult mission - getting young people to vote in the Oct. 25 municipal election.
Even its creator - who put the slogan "Your vote is your voice" on his work - admits "not being that interested" in local politics himself, but now says he would like to learn more.
Safdar, 17, started working with Photoshop on a poster in a communications technology class at Lester B. Pearson Collegiate in Malvern. He finished it at home.
This week, Elections Toronto announced the Scarborough teen had won its "Bring It. By Ballot" design contest, edging out second-place finisher Chantal Stepa's poster featuring smiling youths holding cardboard signs they created urging people to cast a ballot.
Judges praised Safdar's "playful, almost mesmerizing" orange and yellow stripes he said radiate down from the short message and municipal election date in a way that suggests a tongue and also upward, signifying sound waves from "voices" of the youth vote.
The city doesn't have statistics on youth voting patterns, but the oldest eligible voters in Canada, senior citizens, are said to be twice as likely to vote as the youngest.
Municipal turnout for all ages is 39 per cent Toronto-wide, with wards in the inner suburbs doing a little worse than ones in the centre of the city.
"Maybe (younger) people don't really talk about it," said Safdar, who moved to Malvern from Markham a year ago and says he's heard no discussion at his school of the election or voting.
But he said there are good reasons for younger people to vote.
"They're the ones that will need the most help (from governments over their lifetimes). They're the ones that will change the future," he said.
The city is using the design as postcards in kits for new students and as posters at schools and campuses. Safdar, who would love a career in graphic arts, engineering or computers, said that makes him feel great.