Earlier this year I was lucky enough to know the right people in the right place and land a gig doing lettering. I didn’t know where the finished piece would be applied (Kind of glad I didn’t know at first). I eventually found out and was over the moon! Adidas has a quarterly subscription based box curated by an athlete or other influencer called Avenue A. It’s $150 USD and you get a bunch of adidas goodies that definitely exceed the $150. The box for Summer 2016 was curated by Morgan Brian (soccer star) and included runners, sandals, shorts, top and even the adidas fitSmart watch. I was asked to hand letter a quote from her and it was used for the packaging and was also included in the insert.
I was provided with an overview of the feel they were going for and the typography inspirations they were looking at. I used a paint brush and calligraphy ink mixed with a bit of water to make it semi transparent in some spots and more opaque in others. Some letters are uppercase and some are lowercase, it’s very free but at the same time organized. I’m naturally more structured so it was a challenge for me to get a little messy and mix things up a bit.
When I was done I brought it to a professional photography studio to get it scanned at a super high resolution, which by the way was Toronto Image Works where I used to go to school for graphic design & web design. I’m grateful they had the equipment and were open on the weekends because it turns out those high res scanners aren’t so easy to find. You can rent the scanner for an hour (or less) and go nuts! *note: taking the whole hour is definitely a good idea because scanning at that size takes longer than you’d expect)
I would say this is definitely the highlight of my career, I haven’t worked with a well known brand yet so this was really exciting for me and I really love the finished product. I think the most exciting part was seeing people on instagram post photos of my work, someone even flattened out the box to display over their bed! (how awesome is that!)
As soon as I found out my own hand lettering work was going to be on a product for a brand that is known and loved all over the world, I had to figure out how to get one for myself. Unfortunately these subscription boxes are for U.S. residents only. Luckily my dad has a P.O. Box in Buffalo and my sister has a bunch of American friends who have American credit cards 🙂 So, after calling in a few favours I was able to grab one.
I hope this is only the beginning and I have lots of ‘highlights’ to come. I’m continuously practicing my craft and posting whenever I can on Instagram. I look forward to getting better and better!
