2017 Fan Night T-shirt sponsored by Adobe. 

Create a t-shirt design the expressed unity, community and the organization's appreciation to it's dedicated fans. Coming up with the initial concept was challenging because I wanted to avoid a design with typographical emphasis. During a conference call with design teams from both the Warriors and Adobe Create, someone mentioned a portrait I previously drew of Q-Tip from the hip hop group, A Tribe Called Quest. the inspiration instantly hit me…Midnight Marauders! 

The album cover art for MM provided a solution to my problem. A design which focuses on portraits of players, legends and fans arranged in a grid with will represent the "face" of the Warriors community. Each face will be united by proximity and revolve around the organization's logo. That's 24 faces on one shirt. The shirts would be given to all in attendance for the final home game of the season versus the L.A. Lakers (4/12/17). The shirts became an instant classic.

The process starts in Adobe Illustrator Draw. First, a template was created using an oval with a magenta stroke. The oval established a margin to ensure that all heads would not exceed a particular size. Next, The artboard/drawing was duplicated 30 times in the project with brush menu/parameters specifically set for consistency. Afterwards, each portrait was sketch out using the tapered brush tool set to 7pts with a 40% stroke opacity--this is my way of mimicking a blue photosensitive sketch pencil. I drew each portrait in black (stroke) and a 30% grey (shading/details). This allow me to capture the person's likeness effectively with minimal hues and minimal disruption to the tentative timeline.

Once all the illustrations were complete and approved, I used Adobe Comp to explore compositions and arrangements. A custom dartboard was created at 2000X2000px. A 400X400px image placeholder was created next. Then, I placed a horizontal guideline at every multiple of 400px. Next, I repeated the same for vertical guidelines. Then,  the placeholder was duplicated 24 times and set in between the guides. Finally, images were imported via "My Files" option. Final arrangements were sent via share menu to the client for approval…and I still haven't touched my MacBook.

With a few revisions, the Comp project was then exported to Illustrator via share menu "Send to Illustrator." In Illustrator, simple sizing, facial edits, last minute arrangements and my signature was added.

The Result  

I'm speechless.  Adobe Create produced a series of videos about me and the process as well.