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Main Street Costumes | Greenville, KY

Main Street Costumes needed a mascot shirt design that captured the essence of their local, year round costume shop. The design features a photo of a six foot tall, one-eyed skull. This gross, yet lovable, creature greeted those who drove by the shop, and was a fixture downtown for years. For the design, I surrounded the skull with a familiar cast of characters who were simultaneously both creepy and festive.

Mascot shirt design story

First, the owners Clint and Lori Cobb provided me with a high resolution photo of their familiar skull mascot. Also, they sent vector images of other famous characters that they had commissioned drawings of. These included Santa Claus, Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, a wicked witch, Uncle Sam, the Grim Reaper, and the Easter Bunny. I accepted the challenge to feature these colorful images in front of the shop’s “road sign” logo in a simplified four color screen print.

I reduced the surrounding characters to shades of grey, and simplified the skull to a black and white image. However, I recolored the bloodshot white of the eye, and the blue pupil. This is a great solution to the characters, since they originally needed too many solid colors to screen print at a reasonable cost. This also allows these elements to still stand out, framed in turquoise and surrounded by the colorful text, road sign logo, and hypnotic red circles.

I used a vintage style specialty font for the main text “Home of Giant Skull!”, styled with a red to white gradient. “Mainstreetcostumes.com” is set in light green using the familiar font used for TV’s The Simpsons.

I created this newspaper ad design series while working for Dogwood Lakes Camping Resort in Dunmor, KY. The long beloved Western Kentucky campground held annual motorcycle rallies and concerts during my time working as their in-house Graphic Designer. Dogwood Lakes also held smaller community events, such as yard sales. Holiday parties and haunted houses also became popular.

The campground had grown in recent years, so I designed these ads to promote their upcoming events. The Greenville Leader News and the Central City Times Argus local papers featured the ads.

Newspaper ad design for clients in Kentucky

Dogwood Lakes as it appeared in the early 2000s.

My coworker Ricardo Lowenstein conceived the adorable Top Dog character. He provided a total of four posed illustrations for me to use in the newspaper ad design series. I then dressed the pooch up in Photoshop to fit the themes of these events.

Top Dog portrayed many diverse characters for a variety of special occasions. TD dressed as a vampire, Uncle Sam, a jolly pirate, and a mariachi singer. He rode in a go-kart for Memorial Day, hawked a velvet Elvis painting for the yard sale event, flew a kite, and munched on a yummy chocolate bar.

Other designers might have felt limited by the black and white newspaper format. However, I chose to look at it as a challenge. Without colors, I still used the elements I had on hand to create vibrant and fun newspaper ad design pieces.

The ads were so successful in getting the word out in Muhlenberg and Logan Counties that they attracted huge turnouts for the events. I always have fun reimagining characters in different scenarios in order to breathe new life into them.

Dogwood Lakes Camping Resort / Dunmor, KY

Dogwood Lake(s) was a popular campground which featured two man made lakes. I grew up in Western Kentucky, just a few miles away from the park’s location in rural Dunmor, in bordering Logan County. I have many fond memories of swimming there as a kid, as well as watching their fireworks displays on the Fourth of July. During this period, Dogwood Lakes also operated an amusement park on site. The camping site held many special events throughout the year. I laid out and updated their annual print brochure design when I worked there on site in the early to late 2000s.

Print Brochure Design story for Western Kentucky Campground

This twelve panel fold out features on site photos Dogwood provided me. These demonstrate the fun activities potential visitors could expect.

I also used several images of their mascot Top Dog. Talented illustrator Ricardo Lowenstein created TD. I dressed the lovable furball up in a variety of festive costumes to suit each of the events’ descriptions. Top Dog starred as a racecar driver, Uncle Sam, a pirate, as well as other fun characters. I also took this approach for Dogwood’s newspaper event ads.

I colored the print brochure design background simply in vibrant gradients of blue and yellow. These hearken to sunshine and clear blue waters, the perfect backdrop for outdoor fun. I set the main titles in the bold, lighthearted Badaboom font. Thus, the whole piece retains a fun, comic book style feel throughout. Recipients unfolded these big, beautiful brochures, and instantly knew they were in for a good time when they visited the park.

The Brothers Pizza | Owensboro, KY

The Brothers Pizza was a great place to see live music and enjoy mouth watering Chicago style pizza. This rock concert poster design was inspired by my friend Andy (Frontman of Facedown Records metalcore band A Plea for Purging)’s newly shaven head.

Rock concert poster design story

First, I started off with a photograph I took at a previous show of Andy’s newly bald head. Then, I removed the background and roughened the edges of his outline using Adobe Photoshop. I added some noise filters and also increased the saturation for an illustration effect. I used the paintbrush tool to spell out the band names in order to simulate shaving cream.

Between the information blocks, I placed black silhouettes of vintage straight razors as dividers. I set all of the text in a specialty handwriting style font.

Finally, I added a series of purple silhouettes which depict modern disposable razors between Andy’s head and the black background. I arranged them in four columns at angles, which serve to draw your eye to the center of the composition.

A thick white frame boxes in the rest of the elements, but the purple disposable razors poke out in front of it. This technique helps to add depth to the overall piece. The pink, purple, and black combination creates a high contrast pop art feel.

I have probably made hundreds of poster designs over the years. This is one of my favorites. Although the head shaving theme had nothing to do with the show, it still caught people’s attention. The bands, the club, and many of the fans in attendance told me they loved it. It also help drum up more print design business for me.

Nathan Morris | Owensboro, Ky

Singer songwriter Nathan Morris is an old friend who hails from Owensboro, KY.  I designed this CD slip layout, which he used for his 2004 debut EP. Since “Natmo” dug the previous stickers and pop album art design I’d made for him, he hit me up again to create this CD art.

Pop album art design story

First, Nathan supplied me with the posed photography from a session he had taken at a local laundromat. His only directions to me were to keep it simple. He instructed me to use a color scheme that was both minimal and cool. I combined a mint green shade with a dark sky blue in order to achieve the effect.

First, I converted the front and back photos to black and white. Using Adobe Photoshop, I then cut out Nathan from the backgrounds. I did it in a sloppy, imprecise manner to give it a homemade, DIY feel. By keeping Nathan in black and white, while colorizing the background behind him, I made his image a focal point that really popped. This is ideal to introduce a solo artist via pop album art design.

Throughout the design, I used a combination of two fonts. The main title font has a feel that can only be described as retro futuristic. I supplemented it with one of my favorite fonts, the tall and bold face Big Noodle Titling. At the suggestion of my then-roommate Adam, I tilted the song title list on the back at the same angle that Nathan is leaning against the wall at. I also tilted the main title text on the front of the CD slip, displaying it on top of white strips which faux electrical tape. Finally, I simplified another photo of Nathan to make a silhouette on the CD face itself. I repeated the white strips as a 90 degree border, and also turned the text itself on it’s side.