Bay State Design Shop
The Bay State Design Shop, or BSDS, is an inclusive community of designers, illustrators, and creatives, young and old, in the New England area, namely in and around Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 2017 by designers Ryan Arruda and Erik Weikert, the folks of BSDS have hosted field trips, talks and workshops with legendary designers like Aaron Draplin, and community poster shows, with a Slack channel serving as “an inclusive gathering spot for all stripes of designers.”
After the pandemic struck in early 2020, focus shifted to hosting virtual events, initially with movie nights. In January 2021, I posed a simple question to the community:
“Anyone interested in a drink and draw?”
The response was an overwhelming “hell yeah, dude,” and after pitching the event to BSDS admins, the BSDS Drink and Draws kicked off monthly in February 2021 virtually on Discord, before shifting to being outdoor / in-person in July (as the temperatures went up and the Covid numbers went down). After taking a brief hiatus February 2022, season 2 of the series is set to return in-person in June 2022.
Season 1 Announcement Video
(Design / Illustration / Animation / Motion Design)
The biggest aspect I wanted to hone in on for this series and its promotion was shining a spotlight on our amazing community of creatives themselves and showcasing their talents and personalities.
Taking notes from early MTV branding treatments, myself and the community team would select members of the community to take our barebones event template below and go wild with it, do whatever the hell their hearts desired to make something totally unique.
And damn, did they ever. You’ll find the season 1 lineup below, with links to each designer’s respective sites or social media. Give ’em some love.
In addition to event artwork, we have our designers help put together a Spotify playlist for that month’s Drink and Draw to set the mood.
Here’s 2021’s megamix.