To Melissa Cook, a St. Vincent College communications instructor, the billboard message was perfect: a folded chair, stuck between two cars, with the tag line, "We've saved a spot for you in Pittsburgh."

Bill Wade, Post-Gazette Maureen Rooney, a Duquesne student and C2 board member, looks at entries for the first-ever Pittsburgh C2 Student Creative Competition, a project launched by the Pittsburgh Council of the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Pittsburgh AdFed. The contest, for communications students from seven Pittsburgh-area universities and colleges, charged competitors with the task of coming up with advertisements to make Pittsburgh more appealing in the minds of young people. Click photo for larger image.

Unfortunately, Cook was not one of the judges in this year's first annual C2 Student Creative Competition, a project launched by the Pittsburgh Council of the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Pittsburgh AdFed, two professional advertising groups trying to be more nurturing of local talent.

Of course, Cook, who quickly recognized and loved the parked chair's appeal to hometown quirkiness, really didn't have much to complain about. The winner of the assigned topic -- make Pittsburgh more appealing in the minds of young people -- was a design by two of her students, Steven Derr and Michael Crane.

The pair's vision is a view of the city skyline from Mt. Washington with a glowing yellow man holding up his arms. He's either signaling a touchdown or pointing to the heavens. The tag line: "The sky's the limit."

Judges for the contest, which included the lure of $350 prizes, internship opportunities and the chance to have work seen by late-night couch potatoes and drivers zipping along at 50 mph, came from area ad agencies, TV stations and newspapers. Various media outlets have agreed to use the winning pitches in ads next month.

The prizes -- and the fact that their teachers made them do it -- brought about 70 proposals from students from seven regional schools for billboard, newspaper, TV and radio ads to the third-floor ballroom at Point Park University's Lawrence Hall, where the displays were judged on Wednesday.

Moans did not deter Point Park instructor Paige Beal from making the assignment, which came a year after a group of local professionals working on something called the Image Gap Committee took a lot of flack for spending seven months on ideas to buff up the region's smoky, tired image without ever producing a catchy slogan.

Once her students started brainstorming, Beal said there was more to say than they realized. One billboard contrasted Pittsburgh apartment rental prices with those of New York City (no contest). A TV script noted correctly the H.J. Heinz Co. is headquartered here but appeared to mistakenly believe cookie maker Nabisco is, too.

Steven Derr and Michael Crane came up with this winning ad, featuring a view of the city skyline from Mt. Washington. Click photo for larger image.

Point Park student Lindsay Jones won the radio category with a spot in which a young woman leaving for the South finds her radio selection of rock group Coldplay's "In My Place" interrupted by an announcer who convinces her this region has "Everything you want, closer than you think."

Beal noted she will have to check the winning pitches for copyright issues before actual ads can be produced. That, she said, is just part of the learning experience.

The TV prize went to Duquesne University student Lauren Sims' take on post-graduation Pittsburgh. A new graduate standing in the middle of PPG Place is swept away by a rush of good things that arrive, including a house, car, dog, watch and a briefcase -- presumably what everyone gets when they stay in town.

Carnegie Mellon University students Chris Chyu and Janice Lau won the print category. They described a beautiful day in a Pittsburgh park and promise there will always be a patch of grass for the reader to escape to. The tag line: "Pittsburgh, yeah, I could live here."