Go Easy on Yourself
6x4' poster in Downtown San Jose
Originally created for Local Color
May 2020
In May of 2020, San Jose nonprofit Local Color commissioned me to design a poster that would uplift San Jose spirits amidst the devastation of the pandemic. The brief was simply to share a positive message, and the poster would be hung to activate spaces that weren't open for business.
To help decide on what message I wanted to share, I asked my Instagram followers what message they needed to hear at the moment. Out of a list of choices, the following received the most attention:
"Empathy will save the world"
"Times are tough but so are you"
"Go easy on yourself"
The client chose "Go Easy On Yourself" because it was a timeless message that would be relevant even outside of COVID-times (However, as I write this in November, COVID-19 is very much real and relevant).
Above are the initial three concept sketches I gave the client. Because the piece would be 4x6', I drew 4x6" thumbnail sketches to get an accurate idea of how much space the design would take up.
Process
Once the client chose the Go Easy direction, I had to work backwards. Due to the scale of the poster, I set up my drawing to be something I could easily trace in a vector-based program. Since Adobe Illustrator on the iPad was not available at the time of this project, I used Vectornator on the iPad and was very pleased with the ease of use!
I drew a high fidelity illustration on a 9x12" sheet of paper (so it would be the same size ratio as the final poster) and traced over it in Vectornator.
Above is a misprint of my design, so I got to keep it! It's always cool to see print projects to scale, especially when they are larger than me!
Installation
After submitting the work in June, the poster was finally printed and installed in September of 2020. Currently it is located at 34 S 1st Street under Analog Tattoo, and was recently selected to be on display in San Jose Mineta Airport in February 2021, as part of their "Holding the Moment" exhibition. You can view the exhibition online here.
All photos of the final print were shot by Marissa McPeak.
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