2026 Love Your Library Design Contest Top Entries
Grand Prize Winner
“Joy Grows Within Bookshelves”
Natalia Moreno Barragán
First Prize Winner:
“Love Your Library”
Allie Reilly
Second Prize Winner:
“If You Need Me, I’ll be at the Eugene Public Library”
Laura Walker
Third Prize Winner:
“Critters Love Their Library”
Ben Ackerman
Young Artist Award
“Sea of Knowledge”
Hazel Kerber
Teen Artist Award
“Cozy Reading”
Jubilee Zenking
Adult Category
1. Title: Show the Love, Description: I appreciate a space that is so accepting of all people and promotes literacy with no barriers. This is my valentine to the library.
2. Title: Library of Eugene, Description: I’m a watercolor artist, crafter and avid reader. The Eugene Public Library helps me follow my passions!
3. Title: Dreamy Duck, Description: I love using the public library for audio books and providing resources for my community. My art is a duckling, wearing a play helmet and reading a book while imagining space. The way books transport us to other worlds is wonderful and makes me very happy.
4. Title: Chip and Quackers III - Audiobooks, Description: The third adventure of this dynamic duo! Today, they’re listening to their favorite audiobook together and promoting the Eugene Public Library!
5. Title: Books Are Guiding Stars, Description: I have always loved to read and Eugene is definitely one of the most welcoming communities I’ve had the pleasure of living in. I wanted to do a piece that spoke to those feelings. I also wanted it to show the magic and friendliness I associate with reading at a public library and how the knowledge gained there can help broaden your world and perspectives.
6. Title: Spore-ing Knowledge, Description: Books are more than just ink on paper; they 'spore' new ideas and strengthen interconnected thinking within my mind. This design celebrates our local library as the heart of the network where knowledge spreads and connects our community through our shared loved for learning. We are the trees and plants; the library is like our mycelium network that gives us all the 'nutrients' and 'communication' to help sustain our well-being.
7. Title: City Sanctuary, Description: Stepping into the library from the hustle and bustle of the vibrant city beyond its doors always feels like entering a sanctuary. I wanted to pay homage to the haven that provides all Eugenians with a place to learn, grow, and dream.
8. Title: Pawsitively Great Books, Description: Libraries offer a solid foundation to build a better community up from learning and knowledge. When I first moved to Eugene, the library was one of my first regular haunts that was a comforting space.
9. Title: Love Your Library, Description: I always remember going to the library with my grandparents and feeling so at home in the building. With this piece I want to share that feeling. These books are passed between us, people of all kinds. Each of us have our own experiences, but all are connected by books and community.
10. Title: The Doorway, Description: A good book is a doorway to our own imagination. The Eugene Public library does such a beautiful job of serving our community and creating those doorways for all to pass through.
11. Title: If You Need Me, I'll Be at the Eugene Public Library, Description: The Eugene Public library is such a special place! We usually hang out in the kid section and my kids seem to melt into the cozy chairs behind a pile of books. My two sons were the inspiration for this friendly little reading octopus.
12. Title: Cornerstones, Description: The Eugene Public Library is such an important resource and I wanted to celebrate it by taking inspiration from historical art to illustrate how books and libraries have always, and will always be cornerstones of our communities.
13. Title: Book Dragon, Description: I've always been an avid reader. Libraries have always been a special place for me to go and discover new fantastical worlds, and the Eugene library is possibly the most impressive one I've ever visited. As a fan of fantasy creatures, I dub myself a book-dragon, instead of a bookworm, and my collection will never stop growing.
14. Title: Critters Love Their Library, Description: I have been visiting the Eugene Public Library for as long as I can remember, with many of my fondest memories there stemming from the feeling of stepping into the main atrium. Gazing up into the spiral staircase, knowing that there are many floors to explore filled with countless books to discover, ignited my imagination with excitement as a child. I wanted to capture that same warmth and wonder in this piece, filled with book-loving critters that also are a celebration of Eugene's diverse local wildlife.
15. Title: Slow Down... and Read a Book!, Description: In a world where everything moves so quickly, it's important to slow down when you can. The Eugene Public Library is a wonderful place for this! I grew up going to the EPL often, and have always loved how libraries are oases of time, resources, and information. My design depicts our local Pacific banana slug, and pays homage to Eugene's S.L.U.G. Queen tradition.
16. Title: Alphabooks, Description: The Eugene Public Library has become a weekly destination for our family ever since we moved to Eugene seven years ago. We love the activities, story times, and library of things, but we always leave with our arms full of books! I wanted to convey books without drawing a plain rectangle, and I've always thought that book pages would make for a fun, playful typeface.
17. Title: Library Love Letters, Description: I’ve been a patron of the Eugene library for years—first as an individual, then as a parent. I tried to make the “love” letters capture the exploration, wonder, and bounty of ideas our family encounters at the library, as well as the welcoming nature of the space.
18. Title: Joy Grows Within Bookshelves, Description: One of the things I have loved most about the Eugene Public Library is the Library of Things. While I have always understood the importance of books, of knowledge, of the worlds that reading opens up; for me it has been a true blessing to see how the library also helps its community in so many other ways: nurturing a love of music, science, technology, art, cooking, sparking curiosity through games and research, exploring many ways of art, like photography, and yes, even including unique spaces for the community. The library is a space for growth in every sense of the word. It is a place many of us pass through and, in doing so, find a little more of ourselves. Here, joy is not just welcomed, it is given room to grow, shaped by every program, every resource, and every corner this remarkable place has to offer.
19. Title: Your Key to the City, Description: The library has always felt like one of the few places in a city that truly belongs to everyone — no purchase necessary, no membership fee, just a card and an open door. This piece is my love letter to that idea. I wanted to capture that through a young figure holding a library card in front of several landmarks that make this city uniquely Eugene. It offers a reminder that this city belongs to all of us, and that the Eugene Public Library is the thread that weaves our community together.
20. Title: Eugene Loves the Library, Description: Growing up going to the Eugene Public Library, I had the opportunity to be curious and explore my interests. I have always felt that Eugene would not be the same without the library and what it has to offer. In my design, I featured some of the things that build community in our city, making Eugene into the city that it is.
21. Title: Eugene Public Library: OUR Stories Live Here, Description: I am new to Eugene and the Eugene Public Library, but I have revered libraries and all they represent my whole life and was blown away by the welcoming environment and resources the Eugene library offers our community when I moved here last year. I only stumbled on the contest a couple of weeks ago, and was excited to explore an idea I had that expressed the Library as a “quilt” that weaves the community together through shared experiences, imagination and creativity. The contents of the quilt imagines the Library's role in storytelling as a “bookcase” displaying the many ways in which it encourages us to explore our stories: personally (guitar and needle/yarn from your ""Library of Things"") the storehouse of resources the library offers (film reel, books & letter blocks representing your family events), and the storytelling ideas they all evoke (archetypes of the “man in the moon,” wizard’s hat, pirate ship, crystal ball, key). I feel the library is the home for all our “stories”—and you invite the community to explore them here, collectively and personally.
22. Title: Let Your Mind Bloom, Description: One of the greatest things about reading for me is the ability to leave my reality behind and enter the world of a book. This illustration is meant to show the reverse of that a bit--some of the world of the book itself spilling out from between the pages. The flowers and plants coming out of the book are meant to signify the beauty of the natural world, as well as the idea that books can help your mind ""bloom."" I am a Eugene resident and frequent user of the library. I read a lot of books and am so happy to be able to get many of them from my local library. I don't have a lot of expendable income, and being able to read as many books as I can take in without the financial burden of paying for each individual one consistently feels like a miracle. Honestly!! Even if my entry doesn't make it to the finals, I am so happy to be able to make work for the Eugene Public Library, and so thankful it exists at all. Thank you to everyone who helps make this magical place real, and for all the social programs the library houses atop the book collection. Libraries truly are one of the greatest gifts :,)
23. Title: We All belong, Description: The library is a place to help us find what we're looking for, but more than that, it's a place that welcomes us. When l visit our library, I see all of our community. I see a place where we all belong.
24. Title: Staircase to Magic, Description: This is how i think of libraries in my head when it's open, and how i imagine it physically comes to life when it's closed — full of hope, joy, and MAGIC ✨ Featuring the central skylight area of the Eugene Public Library.
Love Your Library Art Contest Youth Categories:
Young Artists (Ages 1-12)
1. Title: Once Upon a Time, Description: I love to read and I get a lot of books from the library. Books are full of imagination and so is my art.
2. Title: Book Soccer, Description: This piece shows what books do when they have some time off. Play soccer, and watch soccer!
3. Title: Anyone Can Be at the Library, Description: I've been going to the library for story time since I was a baby. Now I like to check out graphic novels. I made my art look like a graphic novel and I wanted to show that everyone is welcome at the library.
4. Title: Sea of Knowledge, Description: I have been going to the Eugene public library since I was little, and last year I went to the gala. After seeing the amazing entries, I thought, "I want to do that!" And thats exactly what I did. My design is based off the rare Septopus, a seven-armed octopus, to show how unique our library is. In each of it's tentacles, there is something I personally love about the library, from the cafe and movie nights, to the books themselves. My art shows how diverse the library is, and how we have to protect it.
5. Title: A Display in the Library, Description: I am in fifth grade and have lived in Eugene my whole life. I have been to the library dozens of times and I feel connected to it in my bones. I picked this image for my art because I’ve seen displays on top of the bookshelves many times and I thought it would represent the Eugene Public Library exclusively.
6. Title: Words Made Out of Books!, Description: I like to read books.
7. Title: Pandas ❤️ Books, Description: I like reading books and I love visiting the library! I drew a panda reading a book because I love pandas too!
8. Title: Lost & Found Books at the Library, Description: I love books! And I love going to the library!
Teen Artists (Ages 13-17)
1. Title: Tag, You're It. Description: I do my homework there at the teen center. The people who work there are super helpful and supportive.
2. Title: Curled Up and Cozy, Description: I was thinking of all the cozy reading days inside when it’s raining outside.
3. Title: Anyone Can Enjoy a Good Tail, Description: From preschool story time to teen center activities, I have spent countless hours at the library. I drew a squirrel reading a good book like I have, and hopefully countless more will.
4. Title: Cozy Reading, Description: The library is a safe space for me, I wanted to show it my love with a design of my own. Representing my love for both the library, and books
5. Title: What Happens in the Library, Description: I LOVE reading, and I do it a LOT, and the Eugene public library is where I get a fair amount of my books. I will often walk in empty-handed, and out with about ten books to read in the next few weeks. To me, reading a book is the equivalent of going on an adventure, and I wanted my picture to show that. I wanted it to show the kids in the library's stories coming alive just like I feel the books I read coming alive around me. I wanted viewers to see that no matter how fantastical the worlds seem, we can still reach them through these magical things called books.