Visual Essay
Interplay Between Baltimore Sports Branding & Culture
University of Baltimore
Spring 2024
This project required students to conduct research on a topic of their choice and create a visual essay to present their findings. My chosen subject matter was to explore how culture influences sports branding and vice-versa, with a focus on the city of Baltimore. I was able to uncover stories about the city and how the people, culture and sports franchises have woven together. From the origination of the fanbase shouting "Ooooo" during the National Anthem, to mold breaking Camden Yards, these stories lay the ground work for potential future research and exploration for my thesis.
To bring these stories to life, I felt the best way to stay true to the subject matter and authentic was to hand illustrate each story and collage them into a single composite. Please explore the stories and the illustrations, and start to see how sports and culture feed into one-another.
Please enjoy!
Above shows the process from quick layout exploration sketches, to a more refined sketch, to finished poster.
Above show the illustration process. I started with a pencil sketch to get a feel for the composition and how the to best layout the elements. Once I was happy with the composition I added ink to see how the colors and tones would potentially balance.
Next I moved to Procreate. I decided during the illustration process to move some of the elements around and update the integration for the typography. Once I was satisfied, I applied the final ink layer and moved on to applying the base colors. With those in place I added multiply and color dogde layers to add depth and texture to my work.
