National Spelling Bee Poster: Poster Design

Description: Every year, kids from all over the United States competing in grades lower than high school compete in a series of local and regional spelling bees, culminating in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, held in the Washington, D.C., area. It is run as an educational campaign by the E.W. Scripps Company on a non-profit basis. I created a poster that frames the competition as a substantive intellectual and scholastic achievement for young people. I created a poster design that was inspired by the lithograph style of the Polish illustrator Dawid Ryski.

Concept: The winner of the Scripps National Spelling Bee back in 1951 was Irving Belz. The competition ending word was insouciant, which means something demonstrates a person's carelessness regarding something they must take more seriously. The overarching concept is going off the word insouciant, showing a person eating hunny while swarmed with bees around their face. Looking beyond the horde of bees, you see that the person's demeanor is laid back, and they are smiling, and this further shows the irony in the situation and that the individual is seemingly untroubled in the situation being shown.