City Market’s 50th Anniversary Art

The marketing team at City Market wanted new creative to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2023. The new creative needed to visually honor the co-op's history, illustrate its culture and values, and be dynamic enough to be used across various digital and physical placements.

The team asked me to make a pattern of illustrated iconography inspired by 50 years of City Market ephemera: old brochures, signage, illustrations, and newsletters.

The co-op was founded in 1973, and the line drawings, block prints, watercolors, and typewriter typography from that era exude a back-to-the-lander, Bread and Puppet, Vermont hippie vibe. As an illustrator, I find myself deeply inspired by this era.

As a human, I’m deeply inspired by cooperative principles and the fact that for 50 years, co-op members have organized themselves to build a more just food system that supports farmers and feeds their community. Working on this project with City Market was an absolute dream come true!

In the end, I created both the pattern that City Market initially requested as well as a library of all the 60+ custom icons. This allowed City Market’s in-house branding team to use the artwork dynamically–which they did! They applied this artwork everywhere: in-store signage, website banners, their delivery van, social graphics, print ads, event signage, slide decks, merchandise, the screens at check-out… it’s so satisfying to see artwork get used!

City Market interviewed me about this project, you can read that here.