In spring 2025 I was asked to create an illustration for the Purdue Fort Wayne Surplus Store. They wanted to emphasis their environmentally friendly mission of repurposing items no longer in use by the university rather than throwing them out. They also wanted to use Don the Mastodon, the university's mascot, to emphasis their relationship with the university.
The first task was to look at the university branding guide. The university as a whole used a mixture of black, gold, and white in their branding. The surplus store additionally used a shade of green known as "little turtle green". I knew that incorporating these colors would be the best way to integrate the organization's style into this illustration.
Photo on left courtesy of the Purdue Fort Wayne Style Guide.
As a result of this research, I came up with a variety of sketches. I worked to create options that would give them a variety of styles to chose from. They had mentioned that they wanted it to be somewhat modern in style, so I wanted to create a range of modernity while not straying to far from the personality that Don has in other elements of branding.
We then narrowed the sketches down to these two. The surplus store like the personality and style of these two. After some discussion we decided on the mainly gray version in order to emphasis the Purdue Fort Wayne identity while still including the "little turtle green".
Final Product
In the end, I decided to even out the bottom edge of the mastodon so that it would be easier to use in various applications. I also created multiple versions of the illustration so that it could be easily used in any type of marketing material. This design is currently being used as t-shirts for surplus store staff and staff in other environmentally focused departments.
Thank you to all of the wonderful people at the surplus store for this opportunity! You can check them out @PurdueFortWayneSurplusStore on Facebook.