new venture competition

since 1997, harvard business school has held the new venture competition, an annual contest for entrepreneurs to gain exposure and secure funding from alumni and industry professionals. in the twenty years since its inception, nearly 5,000 participants representing nearly 2,000 teams competed.

gem outline & new venture competition logo by stoltze design.

to honor this milestone, we created a book celebrating its history and listing all past winners and runners-up through its entire twenty-year run, with a foil stamped cover to bring dimension and glamour to the program, which would be distributed to all participants, investors, and attendees.

in addition to designing the book, my team and i curated and organized the content required for the book, including sorting through a survey conducted by the rock center for entrepreneurship and social enterprise initiative for quotes and advice. while collecting content, we conducted an exhaustive audit of the baker library historical collections and the more modern new venture competition photography.

after an introductory section including a timeline and statistics, we brought in human faces and voices by peppering the listing of past winners with meaningful quotes from participants as well as bright pages with advice quotes.