How do we create our Maggie Moore Type Mashup Art Prints?

Maggie Moore Art Prints make great gifts year round to remind someone of a favorite place or team, a vacation or their hometown. They make especially great gifts at the holidays. We call them our Type Mashups and they are 8 x 10, ready to put in the frame of your choosing.  When people pick them up at local markets, many don't realize they are hand drawn and people often ask how we create our art prints, so we are here to tell you!

Before the Maggie Moore days, I was big into hand lettering—constantly experimenting with styles, flourishes, and fonts. My Instagram, @beckletters, became my creative playground where I shared everything from lettering challenges to graphic, hand-lettered and water-colored versions of my monthly journals. I’ve always loved the look of collages that mix words and illustrations—and as a lifelong list-maker, that combination just clicked. Before long, an idea kept rattling around in my head. I found myself dreaming up lettering collages inspired by some of my favorite things—baseball, the Red Sox, and all things Eighties.

First I tackled the Red Sox.  I am a Bostonian after all. Every Type Mashup art print starts with my favorite thing, a list.  I'm forever making lists and this is a Deep Dive into everything about the subject. As a life long fan the Red Sox came easy to me and I included, all time favorite players, Boston sayings like Boston Strong and Red Sox Nation, everything about Fenway, the years the team won the World Series and retired players.  Not to mention the Fenway Frank. It wouldn't be a game at Fenway without one. Here is my original list for the Red Sox art print.  I'm that crazy and I still have all my lists and yes, making lists is fun. If the subject of the art print is not as familiar to me as say the Red Sox sometimes we have to enlist the help of another fan or someone who lives or visits the subject of our latest design. Typically a list of twenty to thirty things is a good amount to fill the page. 

Now when I created this art print, it was Old School.  This was before I treated myself to an iPad and Apple Pencil.  I sketched out everything on the list in pencil and fit it together like a puzzle with the Red Sox front and center. If something didn't look right once I put it down, my eraser got a good workout.  Once it was all laid out and I had checked off everything on my handy dandy list, I went over the pencil sketch in ink, usually with a Micron Pen for the final result.  I remember getting lots of drawing time in, while working on this one when the Red Sox were playing Game 3 of the 2018 World Series vs. the Dodgers, an 18 inning game.  I couldn't possibly go to bed! Below is the final result.  There was no polishing with the Procreate app on the iPad or swapping something around if it didn't look quite right. And if my hand was shaking, well that was part of the beauty. This design was eventually done digitally to create the art print we have today with some added touches.

Once I started experimenting with lettering on the iPad, my process evolved—but I couldn’t quite give up the feel of a real pencil. I’d still begin in my 9 x 12 spiral-bound sketchbook, laying out the design in pencil. Then I’d scan the sketch and import it into my iPad, where I could trace over it digitally, adding “inked” details. Here’s the very first sketch I did for a Maryland Type Mashup art print, ready to be brought to life on the iPad.

After a while I graduated from the pencil and 9 x 12 sketchbook though I do miss real life paper. However I still "sketch" the design in pencil first with the Apple Pencil.  I know, I can't let go of the sketching process.  There's something about it that lets you draw more loosely. It doesn't feel so permanent. Am I the only one who does this? Below is our Washington DC art print as a sketch in the Procreate app.  The nice thing about sketching in this way and as you puzzle the pieces together if something doesn't fit right you can move it around or make it smaller or larger or adjust as necessary.  Once the sketch is complete I turn down the opacity of the sketch and go over it in "ink" in different layers so adjustments can still be made. It is a process, but usually done in front of the teleivision binging Survivor, Great British Baking Show or when the weather is nice, out on my deck with a cocktail listening to a favorite podcast. 

Though I had to leave the sketchbook behind for the ease of creating digitally, I still love the feel of pencil on paper so I bought the Paper Like Screen protector for my iPad the closest I can find to make it feel like you're drawing on paper.

When Maggie Moore started way back in October of 2019, we had Baltimore, Maryland and Ocean City designs which were not only available as art prints but we also printed them on T-Shirts, tumblers and the most adorable onesies. Since then we've decided to stick with paper and include our designs on greeting cards as well. But damn, those onesies were cute. We've added to the collection with the Orioles, Red Sox, Ravens, Patriots and Eagles, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Boston, Massachusetts, Cape Cod, Maine, Rhode Island, the Outer Banks, Maryland and Massachusetts food, Washington DC, Virginia, Annapolis, Bawlmer (IYKYK), the Eastern Shore, Delaware Shore, Jersey Shore, University of Maryland, San Francisco, and the decades of the 70's, 80's, and 90's.  Whew, did I get them all?

I have lots of lists started for the next Type Mashup art prints we would like to tackle, but not sure where we will head next. Because there are some days that I'm fried and not sure what to do next, so why not make a list?  I have Long Island, Chicago, the Celtics, Austin, Nashville, Charleston, Connecticut and my hometown of Brookline at the ready. I know very few people would care about Brookline but hey, it would be fun for me. If you have any requests, let us know in the comments below. You can find all of our Maggie Moore art prints in the online shop! And now you know how they are created.