It was a beautiful late spring/early summer afternoon when I found myself sitting on the porch of an actual restaurant enjoying a cold beer and a tasty burger in a public setting for the first time in over a year. I had come out to Moo & Brew to take reference photos for an Illustration we were brainstorming on for their upcoming 5 year Birthday Bash. My requisite two week post-vaccination period had been dutifully served, my family was in a good place and business was doing alright. Being a freelance graphic designer isn’t always as awesome as it sounds (especially when it comes to making a livable wage), but on that day it was glorious.
One of the owners had the idea of illustrating a retro van doing a burn out with the restaurant in the background. They also wanted it to be screen print friendly with the plan to print t-shirts over at Ink Floyd for the event. We settled on 3 colors for the design, I took reference photos of the restaurant, googled some rad vans, and went to work.
I know a project is going to be good when I don’t want to stop working on it and this one was hard to put down. It’s all in the details and I was having a lot of fun tinkering with the design late into the night.
Everything is vector art (infinitely scalable line work) done in Adobe Illustrator. This allowed us to have a file that Ink Floyd could easily take and adjust based on their discussions with the customer on how they wanted it printed. Ultimately they settled on a 2 color print over the 3 we had originally planned so in the end I think that worked out for the best.
Happy Birthday to the M&B Crew, thanks for allowing me to enjoy what I do. Charlotte has seen a swath of unique neighborhood restaurants and bars shuttering their doors for good due to the hardships of the pandemic world we now live in. Hopefully everyone got to safely celebrate the success of keeping some of the local flavor alive.
