Chicago Block Club Eats Banner Illustration
Block Club Chicago wanted a Chicago food-themed illustrated banner with hand-drawn lettering to launch their online Block Club Eats website and email newsletter.
The Brief: Create a flexible image using Chicago foods and hand-drawn lettering for Block Club Eats to use across website, email and socials.
Role: Illustrator responsible for concept, design, and implementation of all lettering and illustration.
Tools Used: Procreate app, iPad Pro, Apple pencil, Photoshop.
I’ve always loved Chicago foods, so when Block Club Chicago reached out to me to created an illustrated banner for them to use for their new Block Club Eats newsletter, I was happy to collaborate. Using a few illustrations of Chicago foods that I’ve already drawn, I created custom hand-drawn lettering and made a flexible layout to accommodate the many sizes they required for the website, emailed newsletter, and social posts, as well as space for sponsor logos to be added as needed. They chose to feature the Chicago foods of Italian Beef, a jibarito, Harold’s Chicken with mild sauce, and sausage tavern-style pizza. For the hand-drawn lettering, we aimed for a mustard feel, with a fun splat that could be reused across the newsletter for the author bio pics. A super fun project featuring Chicago foods, it was an absolute pleasure to create this for Block Club Chicago. Sign up for their newsletter here: https://blockclubchicago.org/newsletters/
Block Club Chicago wanted a Chicago food-themed illustrated banner with hand-drawn lettering to launch their online Block Club Eats website and email newsletter.
I started the process by creating some sketches of the hand-drawn lettering for the title. I gave them a bunch of options, including a fun mustard-like script and blob-like lettering. I plugged in these sketches into some color samples of the main banner to play with backgrounds and color for the main email hero image. They wanted to include some blank space to add in sponsor logos as needed, so we kept it minimal with a red background, and settled on the mustard-style capital letters in the end.
Some sketches of various lettering styles that were options for the Block Club Eats email hero illustration.
Color sketches of the custom lettering with Chicago foods for the Block Club Eats newsletter hero illustration.
The yellow mustard type was a favorite, so I mocked it up with the foods with a red background, which was finally chosen as the background of choice, with a checkered tablecloth tested but found a bit too unreadable.
The final illustration and lettering for the Block Club Chicago “Block Club Eats” newsletter for their website, socials, and email newsletter. They requested flexible use with different sizes and layouts required for their multiple platforms, so I gave them a few versions of various sizes and the lettering isolated for them to use throughout their campaigns.
The mustard splat was a favorite, so was chosen to add to the editor and reporter bio pics for the Block Club Chicago’s Block Club Eats emailed newsletter and website.
Block Club Chicago wanted a Chicago food-themed illustrated banner with hand-drawn lettering to launch their online Block Club Eats website and email newsletter.
The final website banner illustration for the Block Club Eats features, showing hand-drawn lettering, Chicago food illustrations, and created as a flexible suite for the client to use it for multiple use cases. A fun project that I’m proud to see in my inbox.
These images can also be licensed for your greeting card, product, or social media feed. Please reach out to me via my licensing page to inquire about purchase rights.