world tour

Local distributor Pinnacle Imports, holds an amazing wine tasting every other year in Kansas City (they are also based in St. Louis so the off years, you have to head east for this event). It's always held at a top-notch restaurant and there are so many wines you "have to" get through, that a cab ride home is definitely in order.

When my friend first started out in the wine business, he asked me to help them out with their promotional art for the event. They couldn't pay me of course, but I could drink all the wine I wanted. Since I was just starting my own freelance business and never met a bottle of wine I didn't like, I decided I had to help a friend in need.

For the designs, I used the name of the event, World Tour, as a starting point to create the art and all the copy. It truly has been some of the most fun and creative work I get to do. Now that my husband is a competitor in the business, I wasn't asked to do this year's event art. Sad face.

Now for a walk through memory lane. Cheers vicah!

design by Fresh Fish Creative

For my first World Tour, I took the words very literally using a space/universe theme. In 2005, I was much more comfortable using Photoshop than Illustrator. I did all the illustrations, scanned them in and colorized in Photoshop, using lots of glowy effects. Pinnacle did not provide any content or guidelines other than the date, time and location. So I had fun with the copy, inspired by the phrase "to infinity and beyond" and going from there.

design by Fresh Fish Creative

design by Fresh Fish Creative

In 2007, I took inspiration from something George told me about Irish students. After they graduate from high school, many of them take the opportunity to go on a world tour, traveling, studying and working abroad. Before George, my world was very small, close to my family and never far from my own backyard. The idea of traveling far away and alone? Never in a million years. But now, all I want to do is fill my passport up with stamps!

This time, the design was based on a vintage-y travel theme with postcards, passports, map and stamps for visuals. This was mainly created in Photoshop and the copy was edited to fit a travel versus universe theme. All the images are stock photography except for the one with the light house and long white wall. That beautiful photo was taken in Ireland by my friend Katrin.

design by Fresh Fish Creative
illustration by Chris Magee-Jenks

Inspired by this sign.

My "last" design for World Tour was based on the big top. While visiting my family in Los Angeles, I saw two circus-themed pieces of art in my cousin's backyard. They were headed for the landfill but I rescued them and my family definitely thought I was crazy. Go ahead, take our trash! And so I did. The signs were hand-painted and done in a simple palette of red, aqua, black and cream.

For the World Tour poster, I asked my co-worker for a clown juggling wine bottles, which was done in pen. I added the patterns and kept the copy cleaner and simpler to reflect the piece it was inspired by. This was created entirely in Illustrator. A funny coincidence? Although Chris had never met my friend's boss, everyone said the clown looked like him. But it was just a happy accident!

And now World Tour is upon us once again. When I saw the poster, I shrieked a little bit. Because it's kind of unfortunate. But don't let that stop you from attending the tasting! It really is one of the best and most fun wine events you will have the chance of attending. All the information is below:

NOT designed by Fresh Fish Creative.