While I don’t necessarily believe that any famous cryptid exists or ever did, I’m absolutely obsessed with their myths and stories. Steeped in folklore and classic americana, creatures like Bigfoot hearken back to a time pre-internet. A world where the mystery of what roamed the deep woods, or soared through the summer night sky felt unsolved and unnerving. Though I guess that still exists today, especially if you browse through forums and subreddits on the topic. In doing so, you’ll see tons of blurry security and trail cam footage of things that just might go bump in the night. But now more than ever, modern sightings and recordings feel a little less intriguing and enticing. Generative AI is rather good at mimicking CCTV/security cam footage, much to my constant frustration. I guarantee you’ve already been tricked without even realizing it.

While cryptid hoaxes are core to their existence, the over-saturation and AI hijacking has sort of “ruined the fun” for me. Listen, I’m not looking to be convinced by anything (although I want to believe). But I really did enjoy the fleeting childlike wonder l ‘ve felt seeing cryptid footage and wondering, “…Could it be?”. All of this to say, I love cryptids but I am jaded. Now before I become a food blogger telling you my life story, let me quit rambling and get to main event. It’s CRYPTID POSTER TIME!

Last month I shared a trio of posters that I made which focused on some important natural pollinators. I wanted to practice a bit of photobashing and a bit of layout design, and that project taught me a lot about both. It also featuring a real topic I truly care about. Now it’s time to iterate on these ideas, and try it again. But this round is a little more wacky. Let’s go from birds, bats, and butterflies to bigfeet and mothmen.

The last set of posters followed an art nouveau-esque aesthetic. I wanted them to visually embody the ethereal and natural quality of those particular animals. This time around, since I’m focusing on famous cryptids, I went in a slightly different direction. Instead of pursuing elegance and beauty, I’m chasing ruggedness and texture. It’s grunge! Well, mostly! Grunge typically has a vintage quality to it, but I decided to push it a little further here. It’s grunge combined with the aesthetic of “old western” wanted posters. It’s not necessarily an unlikely combo; they do share roots. And these aren’t literally wanted posters, but an attempt evoke that feeling through their layout and type. After all, cryptids are creatures that are sought out, hunted.

With all that in mind, here are the final designs:

I’m really happy with these! Unlike with the pollinator posters, I wanted to slightly switch up the layout between this pair. It’s not much, just a little inversion. But I feel that it still gives each its own identity. Another important element with these posters is the framing. I wanted a somewhat of an immersive frame for the main images. The mothman frame has the silhouette of suspension bridge cables, while the other has trees and rocks. I experimented a bit with other framing techniques in my earlier iterations, which you can see here:

I had originally experimented with the text itself being a framing element. This sort of worked for the mothman poster, but not so much for the bigfoot poster. That’s when I decided to ditch using the text, and created more illustrated framing elements instead. We got there in the end!

That’s all I have to share for now, thanks so much for reading! Next time we’ll talk a bit about illustration, and there’s an animation post coming soon too!

Photo Credits:
Giganthopithecus by Greg Williams
Owl by Richard Lee
River by Hendrik Cornelissen
Bridge by Nihal Prabhudesai