Congratulations, Los Angeles: You've Got a Condom Package!

LOS ANGELES—Looks like the long-fought contest for who can design the best packaging for the million or so free condoms LA County gives out every year is finally over—and it's a white, black and red wrapper sporting a bowtie and an admonition to "Suit Up." (It's the one in the upper left corner of the picture.) More than 185,000 Angelenos (and others) voted for which of the 50 semifinalists would get the top prize, after the 300-plus submissions were winnowed down by an unnamed panel of judges that included gossiper Perez Hilton. According to an article on County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's website, "The Top 10 entries came from Santa Clarita, Glendale, Panorama City, West Hollywood, Van Nuys and other parts of the county. The grand prize winner, Adam Lyons, 32, of Hollywood, is the proprietor of Pop the Pixel, a West Hollywood design studio." "I feel fantastic!" said Lyons, who moved to Los Angeles five years ago from San Francisco and said he entered the contest after seeing an ad on Facebook. "This is honestly the first design award for me, so it's really exciting." Three of Lyons' designs made it into the semi-finals. Lyons will receive $750 in gift cards and a Toshiba 19-inch LED television with a built-in DVD player, both of which were donated for the contest. The runners-up each get $200 in gift cards but, wrote Yaroslavsaky, "all will receive invaluable exposure for their public-spirited artwork when the winning wrappers hit the streets in a few months. ... All of the top 10 will appear for the next year on the wrappers of a million free condoms that will be handed out throughout the county by the Department of Public Health." But while all the designs were cute, the contest rules stipulated that the designs could not be "obscene," which probably discouraged most artists in the adult entertainment industry from submitting their ideas. After all, who'd want to see naked body parts on a condom wrapper?!? Also, because each new condom wrapper requires FDA approval, it might be a while before those prizes are awarded, said True Beck, project manager for the contest. So ... it'll be sometime next year before we start seeing the contest-winning entries showing up on adult movie sets, and hey, maybe FilmLA will start handing a few of them out with every adult filming permit!