Stevie Ray Vaughan Tribute Poster

poster design, illustration, typography

Project

Information

The Client

This was a self-commissioned tribute piece for Stevie Ray Vaughan, aimed at the SRV fan base, blues music collectors, and venues that book blues and Americana acts. The target audience for a print like this is anyone who lived through the 1980s blues revival or discovered SRV later and understands what he meant to the guitar world. It was also designed with the collectible fine art print market in mind, with a sale listing on InPrnt.

The Goal

I wanted to capture the intensity of SRV’s live performances in a way that felt cinematic and fine-art quality at the same time. The visual references were Frank Frazetta’s bold dramatic compositions and the mood of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns. The goal was to bring those influences into an original digital illustration built from a hand sketch, painted with a tablet in Photoshop, then designed as a full concert and tribute poster.

The Result

The finished piece started as a hand sketch, scanned and painted digitally using a tablet and custom Photoshop brushes. The lighting, shading, and color work were all built by hand at the painting stage before any design elements were added. The ornate border, the dove, the lightning bolt details in the cloak and sky, and the lyric quote were then layered in as graphic design elements during the poster design phase. The custom type treatment was designed to feel like it belonged to the era and the artist rather than being pulled from a font menu. The result works as a large-format collectible print, a tribute piece, and a demonstration of the full illustration-to-poster workflow I bring to music clients and fine art print projects.