Circles Conference Swag Illustration

Project Goal:

Create an illustration for the swag bags of the 2024 Circles Conference that represented a Texas/Cali desert vibe.

Process:

Adding a piece to the swag bags of a conference made for designers and creatives is, on one hand, an absolute blast, and on the other, hard as hell. To keep imposter symptoms from creeping in I focused on my creative process: sketch out the options, define a feeling and narrow down the sketches, add color and make changes.

For this project we were working with the desert landscape in particular and wanted to make sure to incorporate cactus into the piece. Considering the desert was the environment I wanted the shadows to be sharp and dark to show the intensity of the sun on its environment.

Since my background comes from printmaking, I focused on a total of 5 colors for this design with the water bringing the color of the sky down into the piece and the flowers on the saguaro mimicking the clouds.