The design challenge theme this week was “Moon Landing”, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landing on the moon. It was a partnership with Princess Awesome, a company that designs science and technology themed clothes for girls. Many designers went with “girls in space” interpretations of the theme, but I wanted to celebrate the event itself.

I did some photo gathering online and looked at the way I would have experienced the moon landing: watching it on TV. I found lots of pictures of people gathered around television sets. I drew a collection of slightly wonky retro televisions from elements I saw in the photos and made illustrations of some of the iconic images from the broadcast with astronauts on the bright surface and deep shadows. On a few tv screens I put the captions that were on the broadcast. (This photo is from a friend of my mom’s who took a photo of his tv screen while he was watching.)

I wanted my televisions to be black-and-white, so I added a vibrant blue background to the design and then some transparent pops of color on top.

It was fun to work on and especially fun to do the photo research. You can see more moon landing designs at the contest page.