In 2020, I completed a monthly illustration for the Oakland International Airport for their monthly newsletter, in collaboration with Circa — a creative boutique agency located in Sonoma County California. It was a pleasure to sketch several options each month, work with the client on which version was working best, and execute color for the final product. It was also an excellent monthly exercise in developing a composition that would compliment the newsletter copy. The above image groups are for January and February’s newsletter, respectively.

Occasionally, sketches would be recycled from previous months. The client had difficulty several times picking the most effective composition.

Each month I would develop a couple options, and once client gave final sign off, I would work on bringing the illustration to life with color using Illustrator. A couple months I experimented using only Procreate for iPad, but the color flexibility and final compositing was more robust using Adobe’s tools.

I personally love the outdoors, so getting to illustrate featured locations like Glacier National Park and Lake Tahoe was a treat. I used imagery from personal experience as reference for drawing up compositions in the newsletter. It’s always exciting to cross real world experience with creative output.

As the year progressed, my color choices evolved from bright, summery colors into more warm, fallish tones. Going through a year of illustrations with seasonal and travel-related was a great exercise in understanding how lighting and environments change as a year goes on.

While the project completed in December 2020, I look forward to more illustration challenges in the coming months. I learned a lot through a monthly practice and I look forward to continuing to develop my illustration style.