That east tN Pride
Obviously the first question I got from my family when moving to Knoxville was "Have you forgotten your roots and learned Rocky Top yet?" From that I quickly learned that the Vol life is a hardcore life. Orange and white are everywhere almost like Halloween.
I took some of the most iconic parts of the university and East TN life and used Illustrator to create some of the imagery and edit as well in photoshop. If the orange and white weren't enough, you could obviously tell by the checkerboard, Smoky Mountains, Smokey, Rocky Top, and of course the logo. The Inspiration for this was an album cover from the 70s that I saw with the same solid orange square in the middle. I thought, what if the orange embodied most things that were Big Orange?
Some lady vol love
Women? Tough as hell. Female athletes? Hella tougher. Although this is an old image, I loved her symmetry and fierce look in her eyes. She deserved something cool.
This has the same concept of the old album cover with the orange square, but with the colors of the Lady Vols, my mind automatically went to modernized mid-century magazine. I use this idea through the colored but edgy stripes and slight faded and halftone effects throughout the graphic. Fun fact: this quote is loosely from the Aristocats. It's a great one.
show time
I'm a huge baseball fan, and to me, baseball is THE sport. It's the main event. I wanted to pair a fun font with a drawing I made in Procreate of a baseball player. I used the drop shadow to give it a little bit of dimension and depth while also attempting the make the overall look look like paper cutouts or stickers. Of course, as well, I brought out the bright orange and white.
Knox at night
It's not sports, but I had to throw in another one of my favorite Knoxville vector works.
Everyone recognizes the green Tennessee Theatre sign during the day, but at night on Gay Street, the sign glows around a shadowy darkness of the sign surrounded by the night sky. I couldn't help but to head to illustrator to put this together.
Left: Ink print look | Right: Nighttime sign colorized
No days off
It's no secret to all my family and friends that I'm a die-hard Atlanta Braves fan. When they won the NLDS, I was going hardcore on some graphics for a while. It's what honestly brought my spark back to life.
I remember the Braves from watching them on the TV on the floor at my great-grandfather's house (who was even more of a die-hard fan), and he always kept newspapers of their wins and other memorabilia. I wanted to bring back that memory by bringing a modern look to an old photo in the newspaper like he would have.
Made in Photoshop.
I re
straight heat
I went a bit out of my comfort zone for this one, as I usually tend to be a bit more artistic and less... realistic, I guess you could say, but I figured it was time to stretch some of the design muscles and try something new and different.
Max Fried threw a beautiful game right before I made this, and a broadcaster said "That's straight heat." and I thought... hm...
So here we have Max in the desert (throwing heat in the heat, if you will) right towards you as if it's a POV from the catcher.
Made in Photoshop.
Breaking the ice
I've only been to one hockey game in my life and it was one of the best experiences I've ever had. Since moving to Knoxville I've been dying to go to an Ice Bears game. Minor Leagues need love too, so I did a little refresher for a couple graphics that I'd like to turn into a portfolio series eventually.
Here I used the purple as an overlay on the photos with a texture that has scratches much like the ice rink. The black line for the text is symbolic of the path of the stick hitting the puck. I'm still working on learning more about hockey and the Ice Bears to give this brand some justice.
