Mascot winner: Prisma Flores

Mt. Hood has a new “Barney Bernard” mascot design, the creation of student Prisma Flores.

On Monday, the Associated Student Government announced the winner of a student vote that wrapped up a months-long competition among submissions by current MHCC student-artists. Flores’ design won 426 out of 845 votes.

The three finalists, named in April, worked with the college’s (professional) graphic designer to finalize their mascot logo submissions. Voting began at the beginning of May.

The three finalists that students voted on were Prisma Flores, Eric Rodbell and Long Nguyen.

Flores won the competition and was notified via phone call from Meadow McWhorter, Student Life coordinator, and Seth Albert, current ASG president. She receives a full tuition waiver for one term at Mt. Hood.

Flores said she “was joyful, of course,” when she found out she won – and said there still might be a few more small changes to come.

“I believe I created a competitive design, however I would still like to make revisions for improvement,” she said.

Flores is a graphic design major, though that is not what her initial major was when she started at Mt. Hood in the Winter Term of 2012. She was working instead on pre-requisites and program-related courses to get into the Respiratory Therapy program and “changed my major recently,” she said.

Others recommended that she enter the mascot competition, and she decided to jump in only after the deadline for submissions was extended.

Flores said the design process for her logo began with “referencing Saint Bernards on Google and mascot logos on Pinterest to try and come up with a stylized version of our mascot animal.” Once she obtained her idea, she “made many thumbnails and sketches and eventually committed to this one design,” she said.

Flores said the competition was “an exciting opportunity for students and for the college.” During the design process she did not see the other submissions until voting week when she saw them in the Advocate (Apr. 22 issue, page 4), she said.

“I love Mt. Hood. This place has been a major positive influence on my journey and I wanted to give back,” she said.