Personal projects — Woofstock Festival

Raising awareness about adoptable dogs

Concepts
Vector illustrations
Merchandising
Print

Since the beginning of my journey as an entrepreneur, I have set my heart on learning from inspiring figures to develop my skills and make great professional encounters. This time, I have enrolled, for 4 weeks, in the first Skillshare Chroma Course with DKNG Studios, a graphic design studio based in Los Angeles and specialised in the music and entertainment sector.

This course focussed on vector illustration techniques to create merchandising products. From interpreting a brief to brainstorming ideas to creating vector designs for different media and listening to client’s feedback to create finished products.

In addition to the live classes and sessions, we had the opportunity to work on an fictive client brief (chosen by DKNG) that could not be more original:

The client, Give A Dog A Bone, is a non-profit organisation dedicated to spreading awareness about adoptable dogs in the area. Their annual live music/meet-a-dog festival, Woofstock, is expanding this year to include educational booths around dog training and a dedicated area for puppy socialisation in addition to the local bands and adoptable dogs that usually make up this event. The merchandise sold at this event is one of the main sources of income for the client.

The project goal was to design the merchandise illustration to be sold at the event. The illustrations should be fun, bright, and exciting, and convey the joy and purpose of the event to a casual viewer. It should encourage purchase of merchandise and be appropriate for gifts, as well.

Creative concepts

Associating dog and music

The first 2 weeks focused on creating 2-4 concepts and selecting the strongest one to develop. I created 3 concepts.

Concept 1

Illustrations on photos of musical elements or characters to give an impression that the dream (of adoption) becomes reality. These drawn elements communicate how we (pet owners) see our pets: as our best companions. These elements also give dogs the means to communicate directly with the potential owner… almost as if it were the dog who would adopt the human.

Concept 2

This concept is based on the idea that you can do anything with your dog: go to a festival, play music, dance, eat ice cream, play, etc. The illustrations would show an owner and his dog doing all these things that make a dog special and fun through a pattern. I also thought of some slogans such as “Your new best friend is only a woof away” or “You scratch my back I scratch your back”

Concept 3

There are different types of music, different types of instruments and different breeds of dogs. The idea here is to associate a style of music and an instrument with a breed of dog by playing with common colors and shapes. For example a Dalmatian and a piano (black & white) or a Dachshund and a saxophone (longer tubular shapes) or a Golden Retriever with a brass instrument.

Feedback – Week 1

“I think you came up with 3 really solid concepts, and it’s honestly hard for me to decide which one is the best!”

Concept 1 is brilliant, I think the use of photography and loose illustration conveys the “dream to come” idea in a very elegant way. Concept 2 is super cute and has potential to make for great merch since it’s modular. I think I’m most excited about concept 3 though, because it really does a good job of combining the dog/music combo… it would be even better if there was tie in of the adoption/pet owner aspect of it too. As for the types of dogs paired with certain instruments, I think you can get super creative with that based of shared shapes and colors.”

Dan - DKNG

“Great progress so far!”

Echoing Dan’s idea of finding parallels between different dog breeds and how they might have similar attributes to specific instruments or musical styles. Fun idea! From a practicality point of view, #2 could be very versatile and modular with the pattern used on multiple product types, and specific icons from the pattern also being used as standalone products. Concept #1 is really fun in its customizability, but I think I might view it more as an ad campaign for the festival rather than merch? But I’m sure with some tweaking it could become both. Nicely done!

Nathan - DKNG

Concept 3

Like owner, like dog

So I decided to go with concept 3 based on associating a style of music with a dog breed by playing with shared colours and shapes like the Dalmatian and piano. To add the adoption/pet owner aspect, I thought of the saying “like owner, like dog” when dogs and their owners look similar in appearance and personality (apparently scientifically proven!), like shown on the photographs of British photographer Gerrard Gethings.

We usually tend to prefer things that looks a bit like us or to orbit around people who share our personalities. The dogs and their owners both tend to show similar personality profiles as the personality seemed to be part of the dog’s appeal in the first place. Dogs look like us, act like us and in one way reciprocate our feelings. This could be applied to music and the style of music we tend to go to. Style, which is associated with a specific dog breed, which will show a good reflection of our own true nature.

The festival would include several areas and stages depending on the style of music. Around each stage, there would be stands to adopt the breeds of dogs associated with the music style.

Feedback – Week 2

“Wow, this is so fun! Great work and creativity on these!”

Really hard to narrow it down to 2 options, but I think my favorites are the Dalmatian and the Bull Terrier concepts. The Komondor is super cool too, but perhaps a bit obscure? The dread-like hair is already so cool looking in the sketch, you might want to pursue that one just because it seems like it would be a fun one to create!

Nathan - DKNG

Design process

The Classical stage at Woofstock

The 3rd week focused on creating the final design for the chosen concept. I chose to develop the Dalmatian playing the piano for the classical scene. As the illustrations had to be vector based, I worked on Adobe Illustrator.

Feedback – Week 3

“This is such great progress Eva! It’s clear you are having a lot of fun with coloring/rendering.”

I’m loving the subtle gradients and shadows on the dog, and the highlight on the piano is so nice! You can probably get away with giving the dog’s spots a subtle roughening, so those circles don’t look too perfect.
Really nice use of textures! I think it’s especially working well on the dog, and I agree that keeping other elements like the piano and text untextured is working as well.

Dan - DKNG

Merchandising

Merchandising for the Classical Stage

After finishing with the poster illustration, I created different merchandising products both for the owner and the dog. I presented my work live during the final session of the masterclass.

Feedback – Week 4

“Wonderful work!”

We love the extra details of the highlights on the strings and the piano brand. The spot patterns is also a nice touch instead of the full design printed on the bed because with one or two colours the product becomes easier to produce. The variety of products you created is great!

Dan & Nathan - DKNG

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