Creating a timeless piece for Dartmouth's Winter Carnival (plus three other years' worth of attempts!)
🎨 Graphic Design. 💻 Digital Art. 💿 Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop.
Every year, Dartmouth picks an official Winter Carnival theme and poster. This poster's theme was "Ice Age: 250 Years of Winter" since 2019-2020 was Dartmouth's 250th birthday. I've submitted a design every year since I matriculated, and I was super grateful when this submission was chosen my senior year.
As a self-taught digital artist, making submissions for this competition dramatically improved my familiarity with Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop every year. My process is simple: I start by brainstorming keywords that I associate with that year's theme. I then look through dozens of inspiration images and start to sketch basic ideas on paper. Next, I translate 1-3 of these sketches into the digital realm before picking the parts I like best from each draft and creating one final generation of posters. Below is my process and final submission (which you can drag the white vertical bar on the left to reveal the differences between the final and first drafts):
I had also entered the competition the past three years prior, and here were my losing submissions for 2018, 2017, and 2016, respectively:
Connect with me!
If you're a student who wants to know more about product design, a small team looking for a freelancer, or just another poodle-owner, hit me up on Linkedin or shoot me an email at theia.y.qu@gmail.com.
