Found Festival Design

I recently had the pleasure of doing the design for the 3rd annual Found Festival which is a multidisciplinary arts festival, across several venues in Edmonton. Here's a bit about that process:

1. I like to sketch with coloured animators pencils, they help me distinguish between elements.

2. I made three sketches of different concepts and this was the one the festival organizers decided to go with.  (I was glad, it was my favourite of the options too.)

3.  I drew the under drawing at 1.25 times the print size. The poster is 11 x 17 but the bottom 2.5 inches is reserved for sponsor logos, so the dimensions of my final product seem a bit unusual.

4. Using a lightboard, I inked all the elements on separate pieces of paper. Firstly because my scanner bed is not especially large (and I hate merging scans) and secondly because with all the elements already separate it makes colouring in Photoshop a little faster. 

I also sent the organizers five colour palettes to choose from, they chose the brightest, most summery option. I made two variations of the poster using the same colour scheme.

copyright 2014 Meags Fitzgerald

copyright 2014 Meags Fitzgerald

The festival is also printing t-shirts, this variation of the design was made for a one-screen screenprint.

copyright 2014 Meags Fitzgerald

Improv Shirt Design

A few weeks ago I wrote an article, The Role of  Improv Apparel for The Way of Improvisation, a new online resource for the improv community. I've designed over two dozen shirts for improv companies and festivals and gradually learned what makes a good design and how important that is to improvisors. 

One point I make in the article is that the shirts we wear sorta act as our resumes, letting people know where we've performed, studied, taught, etc. They're also important as keepsakes for festivals and markers in our improv careers. 

My friend and Atlanta improvisor, Rene Dellefont, has taken this to another level. In the last couple years he's got two tattoos designed around imagery and concepts from shirt designs I did, both for Improv Camp. Here are the originals and Rene's tattoos (click images for info about the tattoo shop and artist.)

Something I didn't include in the article, is how cool it feels to see people wear the designs I made! I've made two shirt designs for the Canadian Improv Games National Festivals, for 2011 and 2013. It's so neat to think that hundreds of students from across Canada have a piece of my art in their dresser drawer.

A couple times now, once in Toronto and once in Montreal, I saw somebody walking down the street in one of my designs. The world is so wonderfully tiny.

Two Hands, Two Crowns, Two Tattoos

A week ago today I visited the private studio of Lydia Stalingrad, formally of Utility Tattoo here in Halifax. My very wonderful friend Krista Leger, who has two tattoos herself came with me to tell me distracting stories, take some photos and calm the anxiety of a tattoo newbie. (All the photos here were taken by her.) I first thought of getting these tattoos exactly two years ago when I was staying in a cabin in Northern Saskatchewan, I started working on the designs then and last week I was finally ready to make the commitment.

On a technical note for tattoo geeks out there, getting the tattoo on my dominate arm (left) hurt noticeably more than the one on my right arm. However, my left tattoo has being healing very fast whereas my right arm was bruised and swollen in the following days.

My motivations for getting the tattoos are a combination of being too personal to share + probably boring to other people so I won’t go into the reasoning here. Though, yes it does relate to my company name Two Hands Two Crowns.























I got these in one sitting so I'll be going back for tiny touch-ups once they're healed. I'll probably post photos of the finished products in four or five weeks time. I’m quite pleased and excited for them to be all healed up!