Cuckoo Beest
Overview
I worked with the Albuquerque based KIN Art Collective to create merchandise and supporting design materials to promote the legendary Cuckoo Beest art installation in 2019.
The Cuckoo Beest was a spectacular 10 foot tall mobile mechanical roadrunner built completely from recycled materials. It was equipped with hundreds of colorful LEDs and piloted by costumed performers around the 2019 SOMOS festival. The project was commissioned through a grant to support the 2019 SOMOS festival in Albuquerque, NM.
In total the merchandise I designed for the collective helped raise and additional %15 of the project’s budget. Outreach and additional fundraising I helped facilitate raised another %40 of the project’s budget.
Approach
Each design centered around the initial drawings of the Cuckoo Beest by founder Michael Slavich. These drawings had a distinct vision for the project that was easy to visualize and get excited about, making them fantastic for communicating our idea. I cleaned up and colored the designs and created merchandise with the illustrations that captured the crazy, weird, and somewhat psychedelic nature of the project. Lots of our fans really enjoyed the designs and our first run of 80 stickers sold out the first night we sold them.
I also created a custom appreciation package for our backers once the project was completed. They were designed to further our connection with those that were generous enough to support the project, and give them some mementos to remember the project by. It contained stickers, a thank you card, and a photo of the collective with the completed Cuckoo Beest.