The greeters at the gate of Black Rock City, the temporary city built by Burning Man workers and participants each year, hand out welcome materials to everyone entering. Among these are always stickers emblematic of the event in general or that year’s theme. In the last three weeks I’ve submitted no fewer than thirteen (13) sticker designs—hence, the “Frequent” in the title!
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. Visit my blog post “Favorite Adobe Fonts (and more) Sticker Fonts Font Friday” for more about the typefaces I used.
Design #1. 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 image company Shutterstock. Typeface is Blackcurrant Squash from Adobe Fonts.
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. Visit my blog post Phasing-in Font Friday for more information about working with partially rendered images. AI images are from Midjourney. Typeface is Abigail from Adobe Fonts with Latin names in Atkinson Hyperlegible from the Braille Institute.
Design #3. This year the theme is “Animalia” and I’m choosing to take that literally. I started with the title “(AI)nimalia”: an AI-generated image of an animal. 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. 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.
I like the original all-blue image and considered using it for this design, but the single-color image doesn’t show up as well in the small 3″ x 3″ format.
Design #4. 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 image company Shutterstock. Typeface is Abigail from Adobe Fonts.
Design #5. 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 image company Shutterstock.
Design #6 references the “10 Principles.” Typefaces are Blackcurrant Squash from Adobe Fonts and Atkinson Hyperlegible from the Braille Institute.
Design #7. Dragonflies sometimes make their way to Burning Man’s playa, probably brought with an arriving 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 image company Shutterstock. Typeface is Sneaker Pro from Adobe Fonts.
Design #8. A design that I ended up not liking because it’s too complex for a 3″ x 3″ size. I’m happy with the matched set of images though.
This year the theme is “Animalia” and I’m choosing to take that literally, by exploring the 9 Phyla of Kingdom Animalia. These are AI generated illustrations (see “AI generated images of 9 Phyla in Kingdom Animalia“). Note that the insect has 7 or possibly 8 legs—AI software is still learning to render the correct numbers of legs, arms, fingers and toes. The typeface is Cubano, from Adobe Fonts.
In the taxonomy of species, there are 9 Phyla in Kingdom 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, 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. See https://burningman.org/about/10-principles/ for more information.
- Radical inclusion
- Gifting
- Decommodification
- Radical self-reliance
- Radical self-expression
- Communal effort
- Civic responsibility
- Leaving no trace
- Participation
- Immediacy