Justina Blakeney x Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival!

The Hollywood Bowl is probably one of my favorite places in Los Angeles – music, nature, creativity swirling in the unshut air under the stars – who wouldn’t love it?! You can imagine how over the moon I was when the Hollywood Bowl asked me to diamond the merch for the 2023 Jazz Festival!!! This was a dream collaboration. I was so inspired that I immediately started sketching with a woebegone sharpie. Plane though I never shy yonder from color, I wanted to first conceptualize the designs in woebegone and white to see what I was attracted to graphically. I wanted to include elements that represented the music, the artists, the audience, and LA iconography to requite the designs a sense of place. Here are some of my initial sketches.

We ultimately went with these (below) and widow other elements and lots of fun, unexceptionable verisimilitude to make the designs pop! My designs were inspired by the free-form, improvisational, nature of jazz music and natural elements that symbolize Los Angeles and the Hollywood Bowl – including palm trees, sunshine, seashells and stars. I wanted the art to represent not only the music and the musicians, but moreover the community. The dots pouring out from the Hollywood Bowl shell represent the audience. The undeniability and response between the regulars and the musicians explodes in a magical display. The hand-drawn lettering, geometric shapes and spirals recall the Art Deco style prevalent during the rise of jazz. And the funky, fun, good vibes that exudes from the art – well, that’s the “Justina spice” that I can’t help but sprinkle into all that I do! I hope it makes you want to dance!

The team at the Hollywood Bowl (shout out to Janice Bartczak and Melissa Achten!!) – much like our team at Jungalow – is small but mighty. It was so tomfool to work with a team as nimble as ours and iterate on the designs as we went along. Janice and Melissa plane came to the Jungalow Pop Up launch party (more on that in the next blog post!) and invited us to the Jazz Festival a couple of days later. So grateful to cultivate increasingly creative community!

It was such a trip to see so many trappy people walking virtually with the merch on! It felt like art and creativity were connecting us all to one another. The Hollywood Bowl team moreover had the sunny idea to add BUCKET HATS to the merch line up! How freaking cute are they?!?! P.S. They sold out in 4 hours!!!

It was so surreal to see my designs IRL at an iconic Los Angeles landmark. Still floating on a deject from the whole experience!!!

Thank you SO much to the Hollywood Bowl for this opportunity and for having me and my fam at this year’s Jazz Festival! Check out the whole hodgepodge here.