Ski Patrol Band Poster Design & Illustration
I’ve had the pleasure of illustrating and designing the band posters for Chief Complaint, a Breckenridge, Colorado based band comprised of members of the Breckenridge Ski Patrol for their past and upcoming events!
I begin my design process with mind mapping out ideas I have when I’m getting a vibe for a new project or client, which leads me through lots of sketchbook paper, where I write down all the immediate thoughts I have on a project, and then begin to sketch out the first visuals that come to mind.
Chief Complaint’s been one of those fun clients that enjoy sharing a bit of the creative process with, so they’ll get awful updates from my colored pencil sketches while they still resemble more scribbles than professional posters. And knowing that the final products have come together and been widely enough accepted, I’m happy to share some of those process steps with you, too!
As someone who’s lived nomadically for a long time, I find myself trying out a wide variety of adventure sports, and maintaining a general enthusiasm, we’ll say, for the outdoors. My favorite jobs are those when I get to combine my love of the outdoors or adventure sports with my passion for creating art to make fun, vibrant art that the public gets to consume in their every day life. It’s really the cherry on top when it gets to be enjoyed over a good craft beer.
There’ve been a few iterations of this poster, as the seasons have changed or new events have come up and I love the variety these projects have been able to take on: from a Halloween themed zombie-esque ski patrol to changing the scenery and putting the band in action on their skis, and incorporating Huckleberry, the Ski Patrol dog.
After I have the theme and sketches laid out, and a composition in mind I’ll throw some snapshots from my sketchbook down into ProCreate, where I’ll start to lay some lines down and get an overall feeling for the shapes, text boxes, and color palette, and get a feel for how everything will lay out together. From there, I’ll import my drawing into Adobe Illustrator and begin making it a real piece of art.
Once the main poster shape is setup, I usually convert the poster into a million different formats for print and social media graphics, make 42 different revisions for dates, times, band names, etc. and then my work is done!
If you’re in the Breckenridge area, you can generally catch the band plenty of Fridays at Highside Brewing in Breck, or at the Ten Mile Music Hall on February 19th, for a charity event supporting the Go 4 Graham Foundation. Their Instagram page is probably more up-to-date than my website will ever strive to be, so check them out over there!
Rita Marie Carr
Muralist & Graphic Designer
Pink Van Creative Co.
Craft Beer Label Design • Brewery Logo & Branding • Merchandise Design • Packaging Design • Vibrant Illustration • Graphic Design • Murals