There aren’t many projects that come across my desk with an open-ended brief that reads “just be creative.” After talking to the good folks over at Alaska Business Publishing, I soon found out they were serious!
Every year the Alaska Business Publishing Company holds the Best of Alaska Business Awards. As is custom, they commission a local artist to supply original artwork for the cover of the special issue. Fortunately, this year, they offered the opportunity to me, and I jumped all over it.
While talking to them, I realized that the artwork wasn’t just cover art, but also a design scheme for the entire event. With that in mind and a few loose directions, I got to sketching.
Naturally, the first thing that comes to mind in Alaska is the outdoors and wildlife. I figured the title of the event was going to play a pretty big role in the artwork as well.
Thinking about big billboards out in the wild; few things stand out as much as a moose with giant antlers. Moose is probably thinking “yeah, that’s right, look at my giant rack. You can spot ’em from a mile away!” So, after that imaginary dialog took place, I was sold on that direction and continued sketching.
The concept was cleaned up in Illustrator, and I developed a continuous hand-drawn pattern inspired by the award categories.
View concept art
Alaska Biz did a great job with the artwork. I was amazed to see the final product out on the shelves. And for the bonus, they even gave me a spread! Unbelievable! Such a great experience.
View digital issue