illustrated festival Identity for Outside days 2026
Outside Days is a Denver-based festival celebrating music, adventure and outdoor culture. I created a series of custom illustrations and merchandise graphics inspired by the festival’s adventurous spirit.
Merch line
festival poster
Illustration Sets
The brief
Outside days Festival identity 2026
The goal was to create a network of illustrations that embodied the spirit of adventure, exploration and life outdoors. Inspired by the landscapes, wildlife and culture surrounding the festival, the visuals were designed to feel at home in the environment while using bold colours and playful compositions to capture the energy, optimism and sense of community at the event.
research phase
capturing the outdoor spirit
Working closely with the creative team at Outside Magazine, the research phase focused on translating the feeling of being outdoors into a visual form. I explored local flora and fauna, the landscapes and the surrounding environment, but with an emphasis on atmosphere, memory and all the senses (rather than literal depiction).
The aim was to understand not just what the outdoors looks like, but how it feels. The scale of open spaces, the rhythm of natural patterns, and the emotional imprint of time spent in the wild. This became the foundation for a visual system rooted in experience, movement and connection to place.
development
where the magic happened
During the development stage, I was travelling through Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand, moving through environments that felt completely different to the landscapes I was designing for, but this contrast actually became a really important part of the process for me.
Rather than illustrating what I was physically seeing, I focused on translating a sense of place through memory and emotion. Drawing from experiences of awe, atmosphere and the feeling of discovering new places for the first time. I used this sense of discovery as a creative fuel.
The work evolved into a process of holding onto fragments of feeling from different places and reinterpreting them into a visual language rooted in adventure, nostalgia and a wild, exploratory spirit.
what i created
the visual system
The outcome was a set of visual outputs applied across multiple touch points within the festival.
This included a poster design, a set of 12 nature-inspired patterns, and a flexible illustration library used across signage decoration at the event and online.
Alongside this, a separate collection of merch designs were developed, including a blanket, bandana, hoodie, two t-shirts and a tote bag, each acting as standalone designs within the wider visual direction.
the event
A playground for the adventurous spirits
The festival had a mix of speakers and activities from across the outdoor world. Climbers, cyclists, overlanders, gear brands and filmmakers. Everything from climbing walls to rooftop tents, bikes and expedition setups was part of it. It had a really good energy to it, just lots of people coming together to celebrate the outdoors in different ways.
All the merch lines sold out at the event and I even saw some people wearing some in the airport on the way home which was fun!
similar project in mind?
Let’s make it happen!
Share a few details here or send me an email and I will get back to you as soon as i can.