Posters
Oscar Poster Designs 2021
I just concluded my Oscar poster design series for this year by watching the Best Picture winner last night, “Nomadland”. Oof, that film will stick with me for a while. What an amazing reminder of the beauty and fragility of life. My other favs out of the ones I watched were “Soul” (animation, obv), and “My Octopus Teacher”. Watch them, I mean it! Here’s my eight designs for this year.
See ya next Oscar season!
Buy art for Christmas!
Whew, this year is gonna be a liiiiiittle different for Christmas shopping, amiright?? Or maybe you already did all your shopping online, so no change for you.
Either way, it’s my artist duty to remind you that art makes a nice gift! I have a bunch of my original illustrations and poster designs up for sale on my Etsy shop. I sign every print, and include a handwritten note with every purchase as well. Because I love seeing written notes on paper – it’s so rare these days!
I just added this sunflower illustration I did recently, but if you are looking for Christmas-related prints, I also added my “A Christmas Story” character designs as well.
My biggest seller so far is my minimalist poster design for the film “Carol” (2015). As far as LGBTQ films with amazing acting go – it’s pretty high on the list!
Local travel posters
Since I work full-time in children’s animation and illustrating kids books, sometimes I love to dust off my graphic design skills for fun.
I have always loved those vintage-esque travel posters – but who is traveling anywhere right now?? Well, they are opening up some local things around us, which helps ease the Groundhog Day feels a bit.
So the idea came to me to do a couple posters for my fav local Maple Ridge places, as a fun exercise. I have already gotten some custom orders from people – so if you want your fav place illustrated in a poster like this, feel free to reach out! 🙂
Alouette Lake, Golden Ears Provincial Park – this beautiful lake is about a 10 minute drive from our house, and we often escape for the day or bring dinner and let the kids play in the sand.
Gold Creek, Golden Ears Provincial Park – a fav hiking spot, and a location used often for filming shows & commercials.
Ridge Meadows Dyke trails, Maple Ridge / Pitt Meadows – biking about 25-30K almost every day on these trails has been saving my life during quarantine!
June 17 update:
A friend commissioned me to design three custom travel posters of their fav spots, with their kids built into the designs! 🙂 Such a fun idea!
Oscar Posters 2020
It’s my fav time of year! I have loved the Academy Awards since I was a little kid, and my love of film has only grown since then. A few years ago, I decided to do a poster for any of the nominated films that I managed to see. I don’t get to use my graphic design skills as much anymore working in animation, so this is just a fun exercise to stretch those muscles. I will keep adding the ones I do for 2020 as I do them.
*See below for a gallery of past years posters!
Previous years 2016 – 2019:
Oscar Posters 2019
This is always a fun exercise for me each year, since I LOVE film, the Oscars and designing stuff! These are more for me than anyone else 🙂 But if you enjoy them too, then cool! **I only design posters for the films I see, so I can design the poster with the full picture in mind.
I managed 8 this year – here they are together, and then individual designs are below.
Congrats to “Green Book” for winning Best Picture! But really, congrats to every nominee, cuz that must be an amazing feeling! 😀
Oscar Posters 2018
I managed to watch and design 8 out of the 9 Best Picture Nominees for the Oscars this year – one of my fav times of the year! These were all fun to watch and design.
Congrats to all the films nominated, and especially “Shape of Water” for winning Best Picture!
My Oscar Posters 2017
This is my tradition of watching the Oscar-nominated films, and then doing my minimalist version of the posters. This past Feb I had MANY more intentions of doing a lot more posters – but it turns out having a baby takes a lot of your time! LOL. Here are the four I managed to squeak out. [I did these in Feb and am only NOW posting them, ack.] ‘Til next year!
Theatre Poster Illustrations
Quite a few months ago, I was hired by Trinity Western University here in BC, to design this year’s posters for their SAMC Theatre Productions, based on some illustrative posters I have done in the past.
This was a really fun project for me! Some of the productions I knew, and some were new to me. Thanks again for TWU for being such a great client to work with, maybe we can partner up again sometime!
Here they are in order of show appearance:
My Oscar Posters 2016
Every year I love to reimagine the Oscar-nominated films in quick posters that I design. It’s mostly just a fun exercise for me. The only rule is that I have to see the film, and then one scene or image that sticks out or sums up the film, will make up the poster.
Here’s what I came up with!
Oscar Posters 2015
I have been holding out to see “Selma” before posting these, but I still have not been able to find that anywhere…. alas one day I will, and shortly thereafter add my version of the poster to this collection.
There were 8 nominees this year, and I decided against seeing “American Sniper”. So I will hold any comments or feelings about that film to myself 🙂
The other 7 [sans “Selma”] I managed to see…. and I found them all to be incredible in their own way. I am listing them from Most Enjoyed to Least Enjoyed, which is of course only my opinion. Posters to follow: [click for larger versions]
“The Theory of Everything” [2014] – I thought the acting was superb in this film. What a tremendous true story of perseverance, strength and courage. Loved it!
“The Imitation Game” [2014] – Another true story. Heartbreaking, and almost unbelievable what one man accomplished – and what he unjustly suffered afterwards. Such an important story and an incredible film.
“Boyhood” [2014] – I wasn’t sure what to make of this film, except that I knew it was filmed over so many years. But after seeing it, I think it was quite beautiful. Linklater was able to create a film that really did feel like snapshots of a lifetime; almost like when you think back to your own upbringing. Great film.
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” [2014] – The colour palettes and cinematography on Anderson’s film are always magical. This one was so saturated and almost hyper-real, but it really fit the world. One of my favs of his films.
“Whiplash” [2014] – The acting on this film was incredible as well. Somehow a music class and a drum teacher made for an incredibly fascinating film.
“Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance” [2014] – While I didn’t care for this film as much as the general public, I can appreciate the long trucking shots and the interesting choices made for cinematography sake. I sort of liked how it ended as well 🙂
