RETRO RACING CLASSICS
BFA Senior Graphic Design Project
PROJECT OVERVIEW
For my senior project, I decided to design a retro themed coloring book called The Retro Racing Classics Coloring Book. I have always wanted to experiment with making retro looking characters and I thought this was the perfect project to try it out on. I designed 21 single-sided coloring pages that follow along a story. The book takes you through a day at a racetrack and shows you through illustrations and text what you would likely experience at a motorsport racing event.
The project also included designing merchandise and framing prints I created. I designed and colored the characters and framed prints as shown below. I also created stickers and keychains of the characters, as well as making a custom tote bag.
WHY A COLORING BOOK WITH A MOTORSPORTS THEME?
Growing up, I had an interest in the arts and would come home from school and draw for hours. I always had a dream of creating a coloring book, but never knew how or where to begin. I soon forgot about that dream and revisited it after being accepted into the Graphic Design program at Radford University.
While taking illustration and publication design courses at Radford University, I realized I had gained the knowledge my childhood self was searching for. From there I brainstormed what type of coloring book I wanted to design and I realized my interest in motorsports would be a great pairing for it. I created the book's storyline as being a day at the racetrack and came up with The Retro Racing Classics Coloring Book.
SHOW PRINTS
As a part of my senior project, I picked four of the coloring sheets that helped give an overview of the concept of the coloring book and colored them to match the outside cover of the book.
I picked these four images and framed them to be displayed above my show display. They are retro colored and help match the theme of the project.
MERCHANDISE
To add to the coloring book of my senior project, I designed a tote bag using my Cricut machine. I took the original outlined characters and used iron-on vinyl and put it on a canvas tote.
In addition to the tote, I printed off 8 inch square coloring sheets for people to take as a sample coloring page. With that, I printed stickers and keychains for people to take with them.
