Poster Contest (guess what...I won!!)

April's Make Art That Sells Bootcamp assignment was to design a poster for their live Global Art Gathering happening this summer in Brighton, England. It was a slow start for me- I spent a few days just in my brain- letting it all stew. The thought process went something like this:

-ICONS! 

-maybe i should make a simple grid of icons 

-what could i do to make this more fun?

-tattoos? tattoo man? 

-wait?! is the "tattoed man" over-done? (check in with fellow illustrator, hubs, googles)

-tattoo LADY would be bad ass. 

-tattoo lady in swimsuit (not striped) with tats that nod at the event (mer-lilla, MATS house, folk-craft influences, Brighton landmark), trends (owl, pineapple), traditional tattoos (bird, lettering), and communicate event messages through hand-lettering. 

I then created a few roughs and even re-did most of the hand lettered tattoos a few times. Once I started going I knew I had a potentially really great idea and so I needed to make sure the execution was equally excellent. I chose to keep with the fonts that they gave us for the event (though we didn't have to- and were encouraged to explore hand lettering). I felt like it kept the whole poster on-brand and allowed both the info and the illo to stand out. They didn't get mushed together. The whole design took 2.5 days to make. I had a few other projects for the month that I needed to get done (and I work well when I just throw myself at a singular illustration for a few days). 

Once the bootcamp gallery was uploaded I knew that there could be a number of winners. So much talent and a variety of styles- so many of which would have made great posters! (I highly recommend checking them all out!)

When I got the email about winning I freaked out for 5 minutes and then continued to freak for the rest of the day. (who am i kidding?! I'm still freaking out!) I get to skype with the lovely Lilla Rogers for an hour AND have my poster all over Brighton! You can read their post about it here.