What It Is.

The poster announced the 2008 Global Garden Speaker Series presented by Missouri Botanical Garden and Wachovia (now Wells Fargo).

Why It’s Here.

For this project at Momentum, I was the Creative Director as well as the Art Director, illustrator, and copywriter for the chosen concept.

So What?

• I researched each of the speakers and combined information from a variety of sources to craft a clear, concise bio to represent them on the poster.

• To help the speakers and their topics feel more accessible, I illustrated each of them — and a simple icon to represent their areas of expertise — in an approachable, contemporary style.

Visions of Our Green World

Rather than “heroes” saving us, and the planet, I chose to present them as “friends” enlightening us.

Hence, the lighthearted illustration style and the use of “conversation” and “sharing.”

I also wanted to very simply illustrate the idea that what we do in our part of the world has a global impact which inspired the flower growing up (down?) through the Earth from the N in the title. And just in case it wasn’t clear, I added a hemisphere traversing butterfly as an allusion to the butterfly effect*.

*The chaos theory concept not the 2004 Ashton Kutcher movie.

Illustrating the Illustrious

As you might imagine, the original images of the speakers provided to us by the client varied widely in size, resolution, and general photographic quality.

Whaddaya gonna do?

Illustrate!