Peeps and props
Can you top this chick and bunny art? Test the waters in our Peeps Diorama Contest, back by popular demand.
By Amy Braverman Puma
Diorama by Laura Wunder, AB’85
Laura Wunder, AB’85, tasted sweet victory in 2009 with her diorama “Peeps at the Point.” Her competition proved sticky, as entrants included the minutest of details in Nobel Prize ceremonies, UChicago film scenes, and naked polar-bear runs. See the entries, for laughs or for inspiration, on the Magazine’s Flickr set. This spring we bring back our Peeps Diorama Contest. The rules:
1. Make a diorama using Peeps. All shapes of the sprinkled-sugar and marshmallow confections are accepted.
2. The Peeps should portray a Maroon moment—a campus scene, a local hero, or a book, phrase, film, or production with a University connection. Originality counts.
3. Send a high-resolution JPEG of your finished product to uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu, with “Peeps Diorama Contest” in the subject line. All entries must arrive by midnight Sunday,
April 3April 10.4. Include your name, degree/graduation year or other UChicago affiliation, contact information, and a brief description of your scene. Puns and wordplay welcome.
Just Born candy company will send prizes to the winners, as judged by the Magazine staff. First prize: a $100 gift certificate to the Peeps & Company store, presented in a gift box with Peeps and other Just Born candies. Second place receives a $50 gift certificate to the online store, also in a gift box. Just Born has permission to post winning dioramas.
After you’ve spent hours on your installation, make sure it shows well to the judges. Longtime Magazine photographer Dan Dry offers tips on how to shoot your diorama—lighting, background, zooming, positioning, and editing.
End of an era
With those tips—and with this issue—we bid farewell to two creatives who have given us style for two decades. Dan Dry’s first University of Chicago Magazine cover, in December 1992, showed Hyde Parkers gathered on Rockefeller Chapel’s lawn to watch the University’s centennial fireworks. Since then he’s shot many now-iconic images for the Magazine and for the University, where he’s been on contract for nearly a decade. With Dan we were spoiled. We always could count on him to get the shot. Now he’s brought his keen eye closer to his family in Louisville, Kentucky, joining advertising agency Power Creative as senior vice president and chief visual officer. 
We hope his cover shot of Craig Robinson, MBA’91, won’t be his last: Dan promises to still shoot the occasional feature.
We also say goodbye to Allen Carroll, our art director for 21 years. Allen’s first cover (left) was the Summer 1990 issue, showing an arresting photograph of twin sisters taken by David Teplica, a U of C clinical associate in plastic surgery. The cover drew attention: “People stole it from each other’s mailboxes,” says then-editor Mary Ruth Yoe. From his day job in Washington at National Geographic Maps, Allen made our covers distinctive and our feature stories sing out to be read. And when Dan’s images met with Allen’s concepts, the results were artful. We thank them both.