t-shirt

Main Street Costumes

Greenville, KY

My longtime friends Clint and Lori Cobb built their successful local costume shop Main Street Costumes (now The Halloween Shirt Company) from the ground up. They bolted onto their successful eBay store with a brick and mortar. It fast became a fixture in my small hometown of Greenville, KY, famous for the giant skull in the window. When they started planning a “Zombie Walk” event to benefit a local charity, Clint and Lori called on me to create a promotional design. They  featured this zombie poster design on 3’x5′ banners, postcards, and t-shirts, as well as other mediums.

Zombie poster design story

I set out to create a feel that was somewhat gory, yet still lighthearted enough for families. First, I began with the stock featured image, a white eyed “walker”. The gruesome figure, complete with green decaying skin, a tattered shirt, and disheveled hair, still needed a little work. I felt that the size of his head was too small. Therefore, I used Adobe Photoshop to adjust it. Additionally, I tweaked a few colors and features before moving on to the rest of the poster.

In order to make the rest of the elements pop against the black background, I used bright colors. The zombie is outlined in a bloody red splatter, and his head juts in front of the event logo to add depth. Bright yellow and orange banners zig zag across the front like caution tape to display the event details. I used a frenetic, handwritten style font to give a comic book feel.

The debut event was a huge success, since it drew over 350 costumed “zombies” to Main Street in the heart of Muhlenberg County.

Contact me for your zombie poster design or any other event promotion

Are you holding a zombie or horror themed event? Perhaps a Halloween bash for your local community? Contact me today!

Bryan Danielson | Aberdeen, WA

This (Daniel Bryan) Bryan Danielson shirt design was one of my favorite projects to work on. I cheered on the legendary AEW and  WWE Superstar since his days wrestling for independent promotions like Ring of Honor and Dragon Gate USA. WWE briefly let him go in 2010 after a controversial incident on television. He was scripted to choke out an announcer with a tie during an on-screen attack with his Nexus cohorts. Sponsors objected to the violent image, and WWE officials decided he went too far.

While he was banished, he resumed wrestling on the independent wrestling scene. Bryan decided to capitalize on the publicity the angle earned him and had a contest for his fans.

Bryan Danielson shirt design story

The premise was to design a shirt, four colors or less, depicting Bryan as an angry teddy bear. Preferably, he would clutch the infamous pink tie from the firing incident.

After reading this news, I sprung to action. First, I hand drew the anthropomorphic, scowling fur ball, posing in Bryan’s signature satin ring robe. Next, I scanned in the sketch and cleaned it up using Adobe Photoshop. Then, I transitioned the art to Illustrator, where I redrew it to create a vector file.

I colored in the bear’s ring gear with his signature deep red hues. He is holding up a finger signaling #1, a signature taunt that eventually evolved into his double fingers up YES! gesture.

Before he could declare a winner of the contest, WWE hired Bryan back. He then returned as a surprise partner at that year’s SummerSlam facing his former partners in the Nexus. I believe I would have won, since several fans emailed me wanting to buy their own copy of the shirt.