FASA

Every year, the Fine Arts Student Alliance, of Concordia University, has a competition to design their tote bag. I only learned that this year, and I decided that I would enter. The premise is simple, provide an 11"x10" design which will be printed on the the canvas totes FASA distributes to fine arts students. 

Even though it was only a few weeks ago that I got the email, notifying me of the competition, I don't remember quite how my inspiration happened. That is to say that I don't recall if I liked the idea of my art being all over the school, and then I found inspiration, or if was inspired, and decided to pursue the idea, having considered the moment of fame I would get. Either way, I found inspiration from my walk to school, along Sherbrooke. Holt Renfrew appears to be opening a Prada boutique, and has set up a large, wooden box jutting out of their store. The box is printed with a giant Prada logo. I've always loved the elegance of this logo, and thought it would be fitting to have it on a bag.

The real challenge of this project was that it had to be a vector file. I know that Adobe Illustrator has a trace function, but I am not experienced enough to make it work very well. So I had to draw everything you see in Photoshop, with the handy pen tool. It took maybe 15 hours. I am particularly pleased with how the FASA text came out. It is the official font for Prada's Candy fragrance, which I traced from a low-resolution picture.

I changed Milano to Montreal, to appease the locals, and made the founding date that of FASA: 2008. Anyway, I am very happy with the outcome, and I hope that I win!

Update: I did not win. FASA did not feel that my design was in keeping with the mission of the organization. Below is the entry that beat mine.