Winning design selected in the 2022 Veterans Day poster contest

Each year, the Veterans Day National Committee (VDNC) selects a commemorative Veterans Day poster from designs submitted by artists nationwide for the annual Veterans Day Poster Contest. In addition to donning the walls of VA facilities, military installations, and municipal buildings in cities and towns across America, the poster will also serve as the cover of the official program for the Veterans Day commemoration at Arlington National Cemetery on November 11.

Briana Cummings, a visual information specialist who has worked at the Erie VA Medical Center (VAMC) in Erie, Pennsylvania, since January 2020, submitted the winning design for this year’s Veterans Day Poster Contest. She was inspired to create her submission after learning that this year’s theme was honor.

The 2022 Veterans Day Poster Contest winner.

“I immediately thought of the benches at the memorial. The poster is a compilation of three different photographs of the Erie Veterans Memorial Park,” she said. “The one on the bottom comes from the Vietnam memorial wall. The middle, the duty… honor…country, is engraved on the granite benches [near the wall]. I feel the hierarchy of the images symbolically flow well, the flag in the sun on the top, the bench in the middle, and the silhouettes of the service members supporting them from below.”

From a young age, Cummings knew she wanted to create art for a living. While not a Veteran herself, she has strong connections to the Veteran community.

“My father is a Veteran who served in peacetime and receives medical care here at Erie VA. My mother’s father, my grandfather, served in World War II; I have a cousin who is a Marine and an uncle who served in Vietnam, and then once I became an employee [of VA Erie VAMC], I’ve met so many more Veterans who I’ve grown very close to.”

Cummings said she entered the contest because “It is bone chilling that there are people willing to put their lives on the line for myself and everyone else who lives in this county. It’s amazing. Grateful does not begin to cover it. Some don’t realize how fortunate we are to have our freedoms. We have citizens who are willing to die for them. To me, there isn’t anything more worthy of my efforts than to give back and support those willing to make that sacrifice.”

To honor and thank Veterans for giving so much in service to America and protecting the freedoms of others around the world, the Veterans Day National Committee hosts a Veterans Day observance each year on November 11 at Arlington National Cemetery. The ceremony commences precisely at 11:00 a.m. with a wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and continues inside the Memorial Amphitheater with a parade of colors by Veterans’ organizations and remarks from dignitaries.

For more information about the annual Veterans Day observance, visit https://www.va.gov/opa/vetsday/.