The Tiller Gift

I'm going to keep going with this wedding season theme and show another side project I created last month for a wedding I attended Labor Day weekend. I had been invited as a guest to a wedding for a couple that had quite a poetic story. She was from Pennsylvania and he was from Michigan. Without necessarily needing to make a gift, I came up with an idea for them shortly after I had been invited. Traditionally I enjoy hand drawing letterforms for the couples, however, for this one I took it in a slightly different direction. With the two home states as a personal connection, I resorted to using map textures. I found a "T" for the last name of Tiller and got to work in Photoshop.

I found maps in a similar style of both Pennsylvania and Michigan. I wanted the maps to be apparent but also not busy, so I desaturated them. Adding the T into the equation, I applied the Pennsylvania map to the gray T and the Michigan map to the background. This made the map textures subtle and right away, it isn't very apparent they are two different maps. The thought behind this arrangement was that the Pennsylvania girl was becoming a "T" and they were within Michigan, where they moved together as an engaged couple. Check out what I mean below:

State College, PA is in the center, the bride's hometown, with the Michigan highlights of Flint, Detroit, Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids surrounding the T. The next step was to print it. I made the print 8"x8" and found some textured/colored paper to print it on. With a white mat and black frame, it was complete! With the mat the piece was 12"x12".

Due to shipping, I had to get creative. I ended up purchasing a slightly different frame and shipping it to Michigan. I rolled up the print in a tube for my carryon. Therefore, the final looked slightly different, but overall quite similar. I was happy with the final product, and luckily so was the happy couple. Congrats to Mr. & Mrs. Tiller.