Octavia Octopus helps the San Diego Blood Bank attract Donors

For my second San Diego Blood Bank t-shirt illustration I was tasked with creating a fun new design that would carry on the local sea life theme while communicating the second part of the campaign slogan of "Celebrating the Past, Embracing the Present and Improving Life Tomorrow". Who would be better at "embracing the present" than an octopus?!? Whereas the dolphins (our first design) had retro styling to reference the past, we wanted a contemporary look for this one. Armed (yuk yuk!) with these concepts and inspired by action sports logos and my love of cephalopods,  I set to work, however, it took a bit of Disney magic to bring it all together. 

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Drink label design.

The one and only Jeff Granito.

Jeff Granito's "I Dole Worship".

Colors: I'm always on the lookout for interesting color palettes so the Cutwater Mai Tai drink packaging caught my eye when it first came out. Then there are the brilliantly-inspired palettes of one of my favorite illustrators of all time - Jeff Granito. His designs have appeared in Disney Imagineering, advertising and merchandise for years. I knew I wanted to emulate his high-contrast colors.

Greeting card design.

Kraken beer label.

Disney concept art.

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Character Design: Ever since my first Science Friday Cephalopod Week (the geeky alter-ego of Shark Week), I've loved cephalopods so I have a library of their images from various places in the world. However, I was really struggling with the illustration style. I didn't want it to be cartoony, yet it couldn't be too realistic AND I needed it to match the dolphin family from the first design. My breakthrough came while I watching a documentary on the history of Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. Amazingly, it originally it included an octopus cradling the skull of a mariner lured to his watery grave! Imagineer Ken Anderson's combination of realism and fantasy was just the balance I knew I wanted to try for.

Early concepts.

Rough draft.

Final version.

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​Layout and Typography: With the colors and character in place the final step was layout and typography. I went with an oval shape to mirror the organic quality of the octopus and had a ton of fun fitting the required slogans into her arms like eddies of water. The font was easy, we wanted something contemporary not retro or cartoony so we went with Gotham. 

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After many tweaks to tentacles, Octavia Octopus was ready for her debut representing the San Diego Blood Bank. The colors and print quality on the t-shirts and enamel pins turned out great and I love the sleeve detail. Costs a bit extra but really makes it look sharp.

As with the dolphin family, this illustration was created 100% on an iPad Pro using an Apple Pencil and the Affinity Draw app ($10 in the App Store).

​As with all of the best projects, this was a collaboration and I want to express my sincere gratitude to Leslie Eagan, Michael Strayer and the pros at Custom Logos for all of their suggestions, critiques, feedback and patience. I also want to thank the amazing staff and incredible donors at the San Diego Blood Bank who provide our community with the vital and precious resource of blood. Thank you!