I was born in St. Paul, MN but only lived there until I was 7, so I don't remember enough to do a tribute to that place. I then moved to Austin, Texas but only lived there for 3 years so I can't really call it my hometown. I spent the rest of my childhood in Plano, Texas which I'm not a fan of. So I've chosen to use San Francisco where I've lived for the past 10 years. And where I met my wife and my daughter was born.

So Far I've made this silhouette skyline:

A Tribute to San Francisco - image 1 - student project

I've also been following along in the videos and have been creating my own Rob Tyner:

A Tribute to San Francisco - image 2 - student project

Even though I feel I could keep going and keep improving it. I'm fairly happy with it for an exercise.

Next steps are to start to think of my SF tribute. Bands off the top of my head might be Metallica, or Journey. Or maybe just a tribute to SF resident Emperor Norton who declared himself Emperor of the United States in 1859.

Update #1: I've decided to choose a dungeness crab as my object to rep San Francisco.

A Tribute to San Francisco - image 4 - student project

And I've chosen Emperor Norton as a person to represent San Francisco:

A Tribute to San Francisco - image 5 - student project

Here's my iterations on the crab so far:

A Tribute to San Francisco - image 6 - student project

I do love thick lines like Draplin, but I'm also really digging #04 with the drop shadow. I could also try maybe not connecting the legs to the body or something like that.

And here's my Emperor Norton:

A Tribute to San Francisco - image 7 - student project

I think #01 would need quite a bit of work to look professional to me with those thick lines. It might be the eyes being too simple. I removed the lines for #02 and I instantly liked it better. I spent some more time playing with it to make it a bit more volumetric.

Combining together

I tried to see what other shapes I could make with Draplin's circle method and came up with this arc'd square. I started by just throwing down the symbols. Good start, but I need to mess with it to make the face and the crab feel more grounded and the piece feel cohesive.

A Tribute to San Francisco - image 8 - student project

Putting a circle in I think frames the city nicely and gives the symbols a place to sit:

A Tribute to San Francisco - image 9 - student project

A google image search for "vintage san francisco" led me to this image to create a palette from:

A Tribute to San Francisco - image 10 - student project

I've started to apply the palette to the image. I think I've started to get it to a good place. But I think it still needs some work. It's kind of hard to fit his tall hat in. I could let it go outside the frame, but that's not as nice if I want to print a sticker or something.

A Tribute to San Francisco - image 11 - student project

An alternate version:

A Tribute to San Francisco - image 12 - student project

I'm really liking the sunburst. I think it really helps make the piece feel more cohesive.

Stuart Tett

Designer and Entrepreneur

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