NICOLA GINZLER

Senior Graphic Designer
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Design submissions for Burning Man 2023 stickers

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The greeters at the gate of Black Rock City, the temporary city built by Burning Man workers and participants in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, hand out welcome materials to everyone entering.

Among these are always stickers emblematic of the event in general or that year’s theme.

This year’s theme is “Animalia,” and for many of the stickers, I’m taking that literally, with designs recalling the 9 phyla* in Kingdom Animalia that you may remember from high school biology. I also incorporate the concept of the 10 Principles**, the unofficial code of conduct and mantras of Burning Man, meant to make your experience—and the experience of those around you—as connected and joyful as possible. All stickers are 3″ x 3″. Here are the best ones.

UPDATE: This design was one of three selected for printing as a sticker by the Burning Man organization!

Bright pink square sticker design with pale pink writing in a funky 1960s typeface, detailing the taxonomy of a domestic cat with an attitude: Kingdom - Animalia, Phylum - Chordata, Subphylum - Vertebrata, Class - Mammalia Order - Carnivora, Family - Felidae, Genus - Felis, Species - Catus, Subspecies – METALLL. Over that is an illustration of a stylized black cat outline and white skeleton. A speech bubble with a thick black outline and yellow background says "Burning / Man 2023 / Animalia" in black type

Design #1. I’m sending these to the Burning Man organization for consideration for handing out to all attendees. The taxonomy of a domestic cat with an attitude:

  • Kingdom – Animalia
  • Phylum – Chordata
  • Subphylum – Vertebrata
  • Class – Mammalia
  • Order – Carnivora
  • Family – Felidae
  • Genus – Felis
  • Species – Catus
  • Subspecies – METALLL!

Cat image was purchased from stock content company Shutterstock. Typeface is Blackcurrant Squash from Adobe Fonts.

The design is divided into 2x2 rectangles, with a horizontal bar taken out in the middle. Each rectangle has a soft, blurred, clearly AI generated image of an animal. Text reads, L to R and top to bottom: "Chukar (Alectoris chukar)"; "Kit fox (Vulpes macrotis)"; "Black-tailed jackrabbit (Lepus californicus)" and "Mountain lion (Puma concolor)." White type in the black band across the middle says: "BURNING MAN 2023: "ANIMALIA" [line break] Animals of the Black Rock Desert

Design #2. This year the theme is “Animalia” and I’m choosing to take that literally, by representing common animals in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, where Burning Man takes place. I got the soft, blurred effect of the animals by capturing the images from the AI generating software before they were fully rendered, and then playing with the color in Photoshop. AI images from Midjourney. (Visit here to see a comparison of images by Midjourney and Adobe Firefly.) Typeface is Abigail from Adobe Fonts.

UPDATE: This design was one of three selected for printing as a sticker by the Burning Man organization! I’ve been having increasing concerns about the ethics of AI image generation and artist copyrights, however, so I revised this one with ethically/legally sourced art (see below).

In addition, the CEO of Burning Man requested a different version of the artwork, without the 2023-specific text, for year-round use as sticker gifts for visitors to Burning Man’s San Francisco headquarters (R).

The design is divided into 2x2 rectangles, with a horizontal bar taken out in the middle. Each rectangle has a soft, blurred image of an animal. Text reads, L to R and top to bottom: "Chukar (Alectoris chukar)"; "Kit fox (Vulpes macrotis)"; "Black-tailed jackrabbit (Lepus californicus)" and "Mountain lion (Puma concolor)." White type in the black band across the middle says: "BURNING MAN 2023: "ANIMALIA" [line break] Animals of the Black Rock Desert
The design is divided into 2x2 rectangles, with a horizontal bar taken out in the middle. Each rectangle has a soft, blurred image of an animal. Text reads, L to R and top to bottom: "Chukar (Alectoris chukar)"; "Kit fox (Vulpes macrotis)"; "Black-tailed jackrabbit (Lepus californicus)" and "Mountain lion (Puma concolor)." White type in the black band across the middle says: "Animals of the Black Rock Desert."

The background is a photorealistic outdoor shot of the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, where Burning Man is held. The dry, cracked, light-colored playa stretches back to mountains on the horizon, with low clouds above them. The sky is bright blue and the sun is directly overhead. In the foreground is a kit fox sitting on its haunches. It is covered with almost fluorescent bright pink feathers and has a large pair of wings, outstretched, jutting from its shoulders. The insides of the ears and the lower legs are bright yellow-gold.
The background is a photorealistic outdoor shot of the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, where Burning Man is held. The dry, cracked, light-colored playa stretches back to mountains in the horizon, with low clouds above them. The sky is bright blue and the sun is directly overhead. In the foreground is a kit fox sitting on its haunches. It is covered with blue feathers and has a large pair of wings, outstretched, jutting from its shoulders. The insides of the ears are bright yellow-gold.

Design #3. This year the theme is “Animalia” and I’m choosing to take that literally. I started with the title “(AI)nimalia”: first, I used AI image generation software Midjourney to create the initial image of the fox-bird, then completed the design using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. (Visit here to see a comparison of images by Midjourney and Adobe Firefly, software still in beta testing.) The fox-bird was originally all blue; my Midjourney prompts included “kit fox vulpes macrotis looking at the viewer with bright blue outstretched wings,” with other prompts about background, lighting and composition.

I brought the original image into Adobe Photoshop and changed the blue feathers to vibrant pink. I changed the insides of the ears and the lower legs to yellow-gold. I also made other adjustments to the playa surface, clouds and mountains.

I then brought the image into Adobe Illustrator and added the black bar and text, with the “(AI)” part of “(AI)nimalia – Black Rock City 2023” bright red-pink and the rest white. Typeface is Sneaker Pro from Adobe Fonts.

UPDATE: This design was one of three selected for printing as a sticker by the Burning Man organization! I’ve been having increasing concerns about the ethics of AI image generation and artist copyrights, however, so I ended up requesting that it NOT be printed, as it glamorizes AI image generation. I’m really sorry, though—I love my Foxbird!

Bright yellow background has large, realistic illustration of dragonfly centered on it. Centered text in red says "They visit us here." Centered text in blue below that says "Black Rock City 2023" and below that "ANIMALIA" in black.

Design #4. I’m sending these to the Burning Man organization (aka the Borg) for consideration for handing out to all attendees. Dragonflies sometimes make their way to Burning Man’s playa, probably brought in with someone’s car. When I see one there it always feels like a gift. I hope they make it safely to vegetation at the edge of the playa! The artwork was purchased from stock content company Shutterstock. Typeface is Sneaker Pro from Adobe Fonts.

Against a black background, a bright blue, engraving-style illustration of a butterfly extends diagonally from the top right corner to the middle; a bright yellow-green engraving style illustration of a salamander extends diagonally from the bottom left corner to the middle. The animals are almost touching heads. “Burning / Man / 2023” is left-justified in white in the upper left-hand corner; “Animalia” is left-justified below the previous text in light yellow; “We / are all / so beautiful” is centered in bright pink in the lower right-hand corner.

Design #5. This year the theme is “Animalia” and I’m choosing to take that literally. What I want to get across with this one is that there are infinite ways to be “beautiful” and worthwhile, as represented by the contrast of the bright blue dragonfly and bright yellow-green salamander, and the vibrant pink text, “We / are all / so beautiful.” White and light yellow text identifies the event as “Burning Man / 2023” and “Animalia”: that Black Rock City this year, and every year, is a place that is (or at least should be) different from the default world in its celebration of all kinds of people. I’m hoping people who see this design will get over themselves, give up the desire to be “pretty” and realize that we’re all just strange-looking amphibians and insects. At the same time, we all have intrinsic inner beauty.

On the other hand, Burning Man participants are overwhelmingly white, straight and middle-class, so while all kinds of beauty are supposed to be equal, in practice some are more equal than others, to quote Orwell. The Burning Man organization—and most Burning Man people—are working on being welcoming to everyone, but we all have a long way to go.

Both images were purchased from stock content company Shutterstock. Typeface is Abigail from Adobe Fonts.

Behind the type, there's a gradient going from yellow on the left to orange on the right. Next, on the right-hand side and partly off the page, bright yellow line art of a stylized beetle. Over that is black lower-case left-aligned text in an unusual, curvy, lyrical typeface: on one line, "burning man 2023"; across the middle, in large type, "animalia"; and finally, "august 27 - [line break] september 04"

Design #6. This year the theme is “Animalia” and I’m choosing to take that literally. The curvy, fanciful typeface is Afronaut, from Adobe Fonts. The curvy, fanciful beetle is vector art purchased from stock content company Shutterstock.

*In taxonomy, the 9 Phyla in the Kingdom of Animalia:

  • Porifera (sea sponges)
  • Cnidaria (jellyfish, coral and others)
  • Platyhelminthes (flatworms)
  • Nematoda (roundworms)
  • Annelida (segmented worms)
  • Arthropoda (insects, spiders and others)
  • Mollusca (mollusks)
  • Echinodermata (sea urchins, starfish and others).
  • Chordata, made up of Vertebrata (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals); Tunicata or Urochordata (sea squirts, salps); and Cephalochordata (which includes lancelets)

**The 10 Principles of civic life and interaction at Burning Man: “…not a dictate of how people should be and act, but a reflection of the community’s ethos and culture as it had organically developed since the event’s inception,” according to https://burningman.org/about/10-principles/:

  • Radical inclusion
  • Gifting
  • Decommodification
  • Radical self-reliance
  • Radical self-expression
  • Communal effort
  • Civic responsibility
  • Leaving no trace
  • Participation
  • Immediacy
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