The Department of Health wants to get you excited about condoms.
Our pride is swelling over 24-year-old Gene Lambert — the only Brooklyn finalist in a city design contest to choose a new wrapper for its ongoing condom giveaway program.
Lambert, from Bay Ridge, chose to put the NYC Condom logo above a train sliding into a tunnel (subtle, Gene!).

He beat off 600 other designers to make the finals.
That said, he had a hard time describing his inspiration, urging people to just do it (and use a condom).
“Once it’s in your hand,” he said in a statement, “you might as well keep it and use it, right?”

The NYC Condom Package Design Contest is an all-borough competition to promote safe sex by putting eye-catching condoms at gyms, bars and other places where sexually active folks get ready for other types of action.
It’s fun to collect them all — but this contest is not all fun and games.
“We still face an epidemic of HIV/AIDS and high rates of other sexually transmitted diseases,” said Health Commissioner Thomas Farley. “When used correctly and consistently, condoms can prevent these infections as well as unintended pregnancies.”

All five finalists can be viewed on the Health Department’s Web site at www.nyc.gov/condoms. That’s where you can vote for Lambert’s design (like we did) or (if you must) versions by Luis Acosta, whose package resembles an on-button (or a sex act, depending on where your head is at); Virgil Alderson, whose version simulates a manhole cover; Russell Greenberg, who played with a “top hat” motif; and Yujin Lee, whose design is inexplicable.
The winning design will be featured on millions of packages.
