Graphics Extravaganza

         I am not a graphic designer with any official status, whatever that might be.  I’ve never had any classes or earned any degrees, and I really have no idea how graphic design is supposed to be done… Nevertheless, here we are, with me doing all the graphics for Strong Women•Strange Worlds, the group of women and non-binary speculative fiction authors-helping-authors by running twice-monthly group author readings of fantasy, sci fi, and horror, free on Zoom.  For our year-end Holiday Extravaganza we have pulled out all the stops and have six hours of live programming on Zoom on December 12, as well as numerous supplementary activities.  Going on right now, even as we speak, there are micro-fiction contests set by authors on Twitter (@StrangeWorlds2) and a creative scavenger hunt to be found on the web site.  It is actually quite amazing how much fun stuff we have prepared for SFF readers, featuring more than 40 authors in a wide array of creatively reimagined party games that center around our books and stories.  You can see the complete schedule, and by all means register for the party and join us (here!)

        From the art perspective of this blog, however, I wanted to show off some of my graphics.  I had to make over a dozen new images to announce and advertise all the various activities (not to mention the graphics to be used during the activities, which are generally less exciting and more utilitarian.)  It’s been a huge amount of work, but an interesting creative challenge, and I’m actually pretty pleased with myself.  To start with, the SW•SW logo has three silhouetted women with a black and purple-galaxy background, and a purplish planet.  I started fooling around with ways to tweak these elements to evoke a festive, holiday vibe while still remaining tied to our brand look.  (Ha ha - do I sound like a real graphic designer?  Probably not, but you get the idea.)

        Here are a variety of the designs I came up with.  There are a couple of general bits, playing around with making the planet serve for various holiday icons.  I’ve included the bit about the micro-fiction contests, showing the winterized version of our usual galactic background.  Then there are pieces for three of our live events, each distinctive, but still calling back to our theme.  By the way, I will be participating in the 2:00 session of “Speed-Date a Book” and the 4:00 “Whose Scene is it Anyway?”, so if you want to see me and some of my books game-show style, this is your chance!

[Pictures: all designs by AEGN for Strong Women•Strange Worlds, 2021.]