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!
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.
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).
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!
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.
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 realize that we’re all just strange-looking amphibians and insects, each with our own intrinsic inner beauty.
Both images were purchased from stock content company Shutterstock. Typeface is Abigail from Adobe Fonts.
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