Widespread Panic Milwaukee run poster. Return of the Wook.

This past weekend was Widespread Panic’s big annual run of shows in Milwaukee, WI (Riverside Theater) and I was fortunate enough to be asked to design the merch for the weekend. This being my 4th time designing for their popular Milwaukee shows I really wanted to steer clear from repeating earlier concepts. It being a brewers city and close to the time of Oktoberfest, beer imagery has always pops up a lot which I didn’t want to overdo this time around. The Milwookie character that is synonymous with these shows so initially I wanted to experiment with creating a piece focusing in on him.

I tried both a hipped out Festival Wook as well as a Wookie Fonz (reference to “Fonzie” statue on the Riverwalk). Alternatively I also toyed w/ a version with what I call the “Milwaukee Goddess” which in the end we decided to go w/ the Goddess leaving the Wookie Fonz design to appear on some of the other merch (shirts, coin, etc.) The overall layout was a nod to classic beer labels and I thought this was a perfect opportunity to include a “Hop Eye” appearance.

Along with the show print the artwork was used for a slew of different merch including koozies, apparel and commemorative coins. This is something that Widespread Panic has started doing recently which I love. They are solid and surprisingly capture a lot of detail. I will have a a couple coins available in the Store at some point next week.

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A post shared by Matt Leunig – Scraped Knee (@mattleunig) on Nov 18, 2019 at 11:59am PST

Along w/ the Original print (Artist Edition run of 60) that was available at the shows I will have a small run of “Emerald Green” color-variants (Artist Edition run of 35) available on Oct. 29th @ 11am (EST).. Both prints will have a limited run of foil variants for each, (Original – run of 30… Emerald Green – run of 25) also releasing the same day.