Benician creates winning style for rising country singer

By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor

Shanna Rossi loves horseback riding and she loves design. A chance to bring the two together has brought her recognition — and maybe shown her a potential career path.

Rossi, a 2008 graduate of Benicia High School, recently won an online contest to design a pair of Justin brand cowboy boots for country singer Lauren Alaina, the 2011 runner-up on “American Idol,” as part of Alaina’s promotional effort for her new album “Wildflower.”

For Rossi, 21, currently enrolled at Sacramento State University, it all started with a “Why not?” moment.

An avid horseback rider, she visited the Facebook page of Justin Boots and hit the “Like” button. “A pop-up came up saying, ‘You have a chance to enter into a contest for Justin Boots,’” she told The Herald on Wednesday.

Rossi clicked the link, and it took her to the website of Talenthouse, a site geared toward artists with a focus on film, fashion, music, design and photography. Talenthouse offers opportunities for collaborations and contests in many different media.

She registered a Talenthouse profile and signed up for the contest. Given an outline of the boots to work with and told the boots should thematically adhere to the title of Alaina’a album, Rossi went to work.

“I was pretty excited about it,” she said. “I thought, ‘Why not?’ It’s free, I could win, and I could easily get my name out there.”

Because Rossi was familiar with the way Justin represents its boots — “they’re not the most flashy kind of boots, they’re more of a rugged work boot,” she said — she had a bit of an advantage.

But she also “wanted to represent (Alaina).” So, using Adobe Illustrator, she elected to go with a two-tone design, with blue roses and vines on the calf of the boot, embellished with silver studs. “It took a lot of time, but it came out great. Nobody else that entered did anything like it,” she said.

Rossi’s design was voted among the top three, and Alaina was to pick the winner. That’s all Rossi was told.

Then she received an email telling her she was among the top three, and contest organizers wanted to do a Skype interview with her.

“I didn’t know I was the only one that had a Skype interview,” she said.

“I woke up at nine in the morning, got on Skype, and started talking to them.” That was when she found out they had tricked her — she had actually won the contest.

Rossi’s winning design is being made into a pair of boots Alaina will wear at an undetermined date, and the designer will get a pair, too. Eventually she’ll also receive the pair worn by Alaina, autographed, along with a couple autographed copies of Alaina’s CD.

“I’m excited to see the final product,” Rossi said. And she’s excited about the recognition. “Being recognized on multiple websites as a designer, it gets my name out there for companies and even celebrities to see it,” she said. “Anything could happen.”

In particular she hopes the contest win helps her get into the Sacramento State graphic design program. “They have an awesome program. Only 40 people get into that program,” she said.