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One of the frustrating things about commercial work is that you have to keep some good stuff under wraps until the client gives the green light. (I don’t say this to complain. Rather, just noting that it’s hard to keep from sharing the excitement of a project you really like.)

So here’s a design I was commissioned to do and completed back in January. Almost nine months since I delivered the final art to the client. Sometimes it goes much longer than that.

But I recently got clearance to put this art out so people can see it. The client was starting a new company around his sunflower seed product. They would sell the seeds packaged into five-gallon plastic buckets, with a large label applied to the outside. The biggest thing they wanted was a depiction of sunflowers as the main image. I fired off a few sketches, and they approved one sketch that was very close to what ended up being the final result for the bucket label.

I tried to keep a very traditional approach to this design, giving it a strong retro vibe. I can never find good script fonts that fit what I have in mind, so here’s another instance where hand-lettering was the only option.

The birds and the flowers were all digital illustrations done completely in Photoshop.

As a side note, I’ve never done much with illustrating birds before this project, but I am amazed how much I enjoyed it on this job.