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Sempervivi | Lexington, KY

I created this music poster design for my band Sempervivi’s crowdfunding campaign. We were raising money to release our first full length album, “Can’t Please Everyone”. I contracted comic artist Chris Schweizer to bring my concept to life. The band would be shown wrestling my childhood teddy bear Flash. The results were even better than I had imagined.

Music poster design with wrestling theme

While brainstorming the perks we would our backers, I determined that limited edition posters would be ideal. The old school wrestling theme could include many aspects. Ultimately, I decided to mimic a pivotal event in my childhood, the WWE wrestling spectacular Wrestlemania VI on pay per view. The larger than life “Immortal” Hulk Hogan met the enigmatic wildman Ultimate Warrior for the WWE Championship in Toronto. Posters depicted them in front of a frozen mountain range, with lightning bolts lighting up the sky. In order to faithfully hearken back to this classic image, I had my work cut out for me.

Wrestlemania VI promo art this music poster design is based on

I had already created a parody style logo based on the classic Wrestlemania logo. Next, I carefully reproduced the original metallic chrome and gold gradients. My striking tribute caught old school wrestling fans’ eyes. The retro neon pink and green subtexts also jumped off the landscape.

I then added images from our album art. The “Match of the Century” was on! Chris’s drawings show Flash with his championship belt. Meanwhile, the band stood in the locker room vowing revenge.

After I arranged the foreground images, I then built the fantasy background. Rather than a photo montage, I combined illustrations to create the stormy glacier scene. I had successfully paid tribute to the original 1990 WWE poster without outright copying it. Victory!