Art on Starbuck's Reusable Coffee Cups and The History of the Clenched Fist in Graphic Design

When I was working as a Production Artist for Pearson in Mill Valley, I would walk down the hill to get lunch. I noticed Starbucks had a one dollar reusable coffee cup that would give you $.10 off a cup of coffee when you used it. I had already made it a resolution of mine to use my own cups at coffee shops for the year, so I was happy to see that Starbucks in Mill Valley was doing this promotion.

The cups were very plain and white just like their paper cups. This gave me the idea to draw on the cup. I used sharpies to decorate a couple cups with spontaneous, free draws... Doodles, really.  Nothing was planned except that I wanted to use a bike theme and I needed to you incorporate the Starbucks logo into the design.  The first two cups were all about mountain biking:

A local friend of mine, Lydia, noticed these coffee cups on Facebook. She was doing a fundraiser for her friend Claire, who had breast cancer, and she said she would love a cup created for the SF Avon breast Cancer Walk.  It took me a while to get started on this project. In the meantime, my friend Lydia broke her arm while training for the SF Breast Cancer walk.  She actually got a pink cast, in honor of the event!

Lydia's pink cast gave me the idea of the arm up in the air for strength and power and all of the posters we've seen from 1960s on with the clenched fist raised showing power to the people.  Here is a great brief history of the art of the clenched fist .

So, I made a pink fist for Lydia's cup.

I added lots of pink breast cancer ribbons...

I changed the Starbuck's gal to "Queen Lydia" with shorter hair and pink arms raised in strength.

Today I learned that Claire's cancer is in remission, but she is still undergoing her final rounds of chemotherapy.  I couldn't be more delighted with this news.  If you would like to contribute to "Team Claire" in the SF Breast Cancer Walk, you may do so by clicking here.