My art has gone to the birds!

Not sure why I've been commissioned to illustrate so many birds the past few months but here are two more. I am actually creating '7' school mascots for 'Tactix Creative' in Arizona. These specific mascots are for a school called 'Williams Field Black Hawks' (High School) and 'Higley Hawks' (Elementary School). These are tricky little buggers. You see you only get a maximum of '4' spot colors and two of those have to be 'Black' and 'White'. The schools colors are 'Red' and 'Grey' and 'Gold' and 'Grey' respectively.

This project is interesting in that all mascots have to be approved by the district and it brings up interesting opinions. Since one is for an Elementary school they don't want the mascot to be too aggressive or mean looking. But they want him cool enough that kids will still like it. Were as the High school prefers a more aggressive mascot and it's OK to have a furrowed brow. Either way who really wants to wear a weenie looking hawk on their school shirt? I can't help but think that soccer moms are influencing the art direction by not wanting Jr. to be scared by the mean looking hawk character? (OK, rant over)

The thing I like best about these type of projects is it's a good mix of illustration and design. I design my illustration more then normal on this type of work since it's being used in such a graphic format such as t-shirts, banners, floor decals etc.

Mascot for 'Williams Field Black Hawks' - High School


Mascot for 'Higley Hawks' - Elementary School