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SXSW 2020 — AKA, the SXSW that never was
Back in 2019, Mattson Creative was asked to be the 2020 "Big Bag" artist for SXSW. Ty Mattson asked me to create the artwork, so I had the opportunity to create the Big Bag art, as well as additional artwork for tee shirts, and a poster (including a color variant or two, though I'm not sure if those are available for sale). Ty's original request was to have me create something that felt evocative of a 60's era worlds fair, while feeling modern.
Of course none of us could have know that South-by-Southwest 2020 would go down in history as "the one that never was". But despite that, it was still an honor and a privilege to make a little art.
Shirts and posters can be purchased on the SXSW web site, sxsw.com and at least for the time-being, it looks like the bags come free with purchases, while supplies last.
Client: SXSW
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Creative Director: Ty Mattson
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Design / Illustration: Russ Gray
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/917f6d3c515079e48da4d0c714d0cfde/d4e64dbf-bfd9-4da2-babc-754586604b4e_rw_3840.jpg?h=56f4086e11df8b5b5e48b7964da5953f)
Often I will do rough sketches for projects, but in this case, my "sketching" was all done in Illustrator. Here are just a tiny handful of the variations and options I played with, but never showed to the client in the end.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/917f6d3c515079e48da4d0c714d0cfde/89a3b0df-3e38-47b5-b4e4-81cdd8cc81d0_rw_1920.png?h=2c7fc5a08c5624b562a1bd0fb7c8ca17)
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After completing the bag artwork, South by Southwest requested we design posters and shirts. SXSW also wanted color alternates for the posters, and in the end they printed 2 versions — the original yellow, and the pink. Posters were printed by Vahalla Studios.
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