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Main Street Costumes: Zombie Walk 2

Zombie Walk 2 event promotion design

Main Street Costumes

Greenville, KY

The living dead returned, roaming the streets of Western Kentucky for the sequel to 2o11’s Zombie Walk event! The previous year’s undead themed charity walk was a huge success. Therefore, Main Street Costumes once again called me for event promotion design. The small town costume shop printed variations of this artwork as eight feet long banners, postcards, and t-shirts.

Since this was the second annual event, I multiplied the featured zombies by two. I felt that the stock image of the purple female zombie was a tad too immodest for a family event, so I photoshopped more clothing to cover her. I also adjusted some proportions of the characters to better fit the space.

Then, I drew the red “2” so that the second event artwork would call back to 1980s slasher film sequels. The brightly colored characters and titles pop off of the stark background. I used the heavyweight Gotham font for the copy. See my work on display in this Youtube commercial for the event:

Screen printed shirt for event promotion design

I rose to the challenge of simplifying the full color poster and card designs to create a three color screen printed shirt. Since my background includes over five years of working in the screen printing industry, it was second nature to me. My client agreed that we should reduce the art to pink and purple with white highlights. We stuck with the black background for the shirt. Black therefore functions as a de facto fourth color, outlining the words and images, and coloring hair and grunge elements.

Contact me for your own event promotion design

Are you planning a community event such as a costume party, fundraiser, or fun run 5K race? Contact me today! I will bring your vision to life.

Zombie poster design for Kentucky costume shop event

Main Street Costumes

Greenville, KY

My longtime friends Clint and Lori Cobb built their successful local costume shop Main Street Costumes from the ground up. They bolted onto their successful eBay store with a brick and mortar. It fast became a fixture in my small hometown of Greenville, KY, famous for the giant skull in the window. When they started planning a “Zombie Walk” event to benefit a local charity, Clint and Lori called on me to create a promotional design. They  featured this zombie poster design on 3’x5′ banners, postcards, and t-shirts, as well as other mediums.

Zombie poster design story

I set out to create a feel that was somewhat gory, yet still lighthearted enough for families. First, I began with the stock featured image, a white eyed “walker”. The gruesome figure, complete with green decaying skin, a tattered shirt, and disheveled hair, still needed a little work. I felt that the size of his head was too small. Therefore, I used Adobe Photoshop to adjust it. Additionally, I tweaked a few colors and features before moving on to the rest of the poster.

In order to make the rest of the elements pop against the black background, I used bright colors. The zombie is outlined in a bloody red splatter, and his head juts in front of the event logo to add depth. Bright yellow and orange banners zig zag across the front like caution tape to display the event details. I used a frenetic, handwritten style font to give a comic book feel. The debut event was a huge success, since it drew over 350 costumed “zombies” to Main Street in the heart of Muhlenberg County.

Contact me for your zombie poster design or any other event promotion

Are you holding a zombie or horror themed event? Perhaps a Halloween bash for your local community? Contact me today!

Mascot Shirt Design for Main Street Costumes in KentuckyMain Street Costumes

Greenville, KY

Main Street Costumes needed a mascot shirt design that captured the essence of their local, year round costume shop. The design features a photo of a six foot tall, one-eyed skull. This gross, yet lovable, creature greeted those who drove by the shop, and was a fixture downtown for years. For the design, I surrounded the skull with a familiar cast of characters who were simultaneously both creepy and festive.

Mascot shirt design story

First, the owners Clint and Lori Cobb provided me with a high resolution photo of their familiar skull mascot. Also, they sent vector images of other famous characters that they had commissioned drawings of. These included Santa Claus, Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, a wicked witch, Uncle Sam, the Grim Reaper, and the Easter Bunny. I accepted the challenge to feature these colorful images in front of the shop’s “road sign” logo in a simplified four color screen print.

I reduced the surrounding characters to shades of grey, and simplified the skull to a black and white image. However, I recolored the bloodshot white of the eye, and the blue pupil. This is a great solution to the characters, since they originally needed too many solid colors to screen print at a reasonable cost. This also allows these elements to still stand out, framed in turquoise and surrounded by the colorful text, road sign logo, and hypnotic red circles. I used a vintage style specialty font for the main text “Home of Giant Skull!”, styled with a red to white gradient. “Mainstreetcostumes.com” is set in light green using the familiar font used for TV’s The Simpsons.

Hire me today for your mascot shirt design

Does your business have a unique mascot that is popular both online and with brick and mortar visitors? You should make the most of it and print some merchandise! Contact me today so we can put our heads together!