Lost Art, Vol. 1: Earth Day Illustrations

Every designer knows the pain of lost art. Whether it was overlooked in a pitch deck, scrapped after hours of labor, or simply had a fleeting life span, it’s always sad to see something you’re proud of disappear into the ether.

That’s why I’m dedicating this blog series to all those things that never got the spotlight they deserved. First up, a series of illustrations I made for San Diego Zoo’s Instagram story on Earth Day. Although they did run on as planned I feel like they deserved to exist for more than 10 seconds each.

These illustrations were also converted into a single graphic to be shared on other social channels. Unfortunately, it was held up in the editing process and we weren’t able to get it live in time for Earth Day.

I think social media content design is one of my favorite mediums for design work. Anything you make for social should be entertaining and engaging so these types of projects are generally more fun to work on because the content should be more fun.

I particularly enjoyed this project because I rarely get to do illustration work. I did all of these on my iPad Pro, with the 2nd Gen. Apple Pencil and Procreate app. I also used some texturized Procreate brushes I purchased from Creative Market.

Do you have a project you feel like never got the recognition it deserved? Share a link to it in the comments below to get some love!