In honor of Alabama’s 200th anniversary of statehood, we partnered with the Alabama Humanities Foundation to create the Making Alabama Traveling Exhibit and the Making Alabama Poster Series. The exhibit traces the entirety of Alabama history from the Age of Exploration and American settlement to the Civil War, Civil Rights Movement and Space Age. The objective was to immerse explorers of all ages in Alabama history like never before with interactive touchpoints and larger-than-life-artwork. The custom artwork for the exhibit and posters would need to serve an array of educational, tourism and advertising purposes.

We organized centuries of Alabama history into distinctive eras, named the time periods and created custom collage illustrations for each one, reflecting the predominant themes of the era. Each collage would serve as a panel of the exhibit and a poster in the series. For flexible usage, we designed the illustrations within circular medallions — this graphic device allowed us to adapt the artwork for dynamic applications. The poster series captures the full sweep of Alabama history with conceptual, visual stories. For early time periods, visual assets were sparse, so we created the elements from a wealth of research, and for continuity of style, we artfully blended original illustrations, graphics and photography in the later time periods. As a series, we designed the transition from early to modern time periods to be seamless.

The Making Alabama Poster Series has reached thousands of Alabamians in all corners of the state. The thought-provoking, challenging and whimsical designs have reshaped the modern understanding of our state’s complex history. The Alabama Humanities Foundation touts the posters for representing the broad sweep of human experience rather than fixating on the legendary characters who often dominate our history. Appealing to people of all ages and demographics, the Making Alabama Poster Series has revived interest in our storied past and motivated local areas to host the companion Making Alabama Traveling Exhibit.