It's that time of year again when I get to draw the poster for the Ronald McDonald House "SuperHero For A Day" event. The SuperHero For A Day event is always a wonderful time where artists, creators and other companies contribute to help kids in need.
This year I decided to draw the poster with a retro-inspired postcard feel. I worked with creative teams and partners from the Ronald McDonald House. I was in charge of concept art including mood boards and sketches to final deliverables. I drew all the illustrations, character artwork, and typography design in Adobe Illustrator. For more on my process see below.
The first thing I do is create a mood board of all the posters and typography that inspire me. I will also alter the typography to make it specific and custom for the look I am going for. For this piece I was looking for Fonts with a soft rounded edge that felt retro but could also be legible if artwork was place within them.
I also looked at Mary Blair illustrations because I thought her artwork of children would be the perfect combination of simplified vintage art and welcoming imagery.
I always start in Adobe Illustrator because of the versatility of vector artwork and typography. I can arrange and rescale all the art and it never affects the resolution. Vector artwork in Adobe Illustrator also allows for easier changes in compositions.
Those where all graphics I came up with, I did not use all of them but that's ok. I think it is good to have more options and then take away pieces until you have a kinetic fluid image. I looked to my original sketch until I felt I had the same energy that I did from my reference art and mood boards.
For more on what the Ronald McDonald House does please go here: https://www.rmh-newyork.org/who-we-are
