This is a poster design for the National Cherry Blossom Festival's annual contest. I decided to go with an design reminiscent of Art Deco while still being soft and keeping with a traditional Japanese like sort of design sensibility to allude to the Japanese reverance for the Cherry Blossom Tree and to the fact that it was Japan that gifted the city of Washington DC with the trees in the early 1900s.
Also alluding to the Japanese origins of the festival are the characters for Sakura, the Japanese name for the Cherry Tree; Hanami, meaning "flower viewing party" (Hanami festivals take place all through Japan during the blossoming season); and Chiru, meaning "to scatter". The characters are just barely visible as I didn't want them to be blatantly there and because I like the idea of someone seeing the poster several times before finally noticing that they've been there the whole time.
