Annual Tomato Day Graphics
Durham Farmer’s Market
Role(s): Graphic Design, Illustration
DFM’s Tomato Day is a vibrant summer celebration bringing together local growers, food artisans, families, and visitors. It’s a chance to celebrate the diversity of North Carolina tomatoes—highlighting their flavor, color, and culinary potential—while elevating community connections, supporting farm-to-table education, and enjoying live music in the park.
DFM is a community of farmers, growers and crafters who are strongly committed to local products: every item you see at the market was produced by the people selling it, and it all comes from no more than 70 miles away.
In 2024, the Durham Farmers’ Market invited me to create custom graphics for their annual event, Tomato Day. This collaboration aimed to highlight local produce while celebrating the vibrant community.
From Market Roots to Merch Magic
Over 450 shirts sold during the event alone, and growing demand, including out-of-state requests, led the market to launch its first-ever online store."
2025 Tomato Day Design
In the original concept sketches back in 2024, I included this bull riding tomato. Durham is often to referred to as Bull Durham or Bull City named after Bull Durham tobacco, a popular brand of smoking tobacco that originated in Durham, North Carolina.
For 2025, we agreed to bring back the bull riding tomato as the theme with nods to rodeo and western advertisements.
The request this year as to also include a bandana design along with a shirt design. Refining the old sketch further and incorporating elements the mood board, I was off the races to get the designs full illustrated.
Through collaborative feedback with Durham Farmers’ Market Manager Kaitlyn Breedlove and the DFM team, paired with my design recommendations, we selected and printed two final shirt designs."
To guide the color selection for the final illustration, I curated swatches from 16 different Comfort Colors 1717 shirt options. These two boards showcase both single-color and multi-color design variations.
Final Designs
Cream Shirt with Red Ink
Dark Grey Shirt with Full Color
Custom Bandana
With the combined effort between myself, my supportive mother, and the DFM team, we sold…
700+ shirts
150+ bandanas
It’s July 19, the temps are soaring into the high 90s. Yet that didn’t deter the awesome community of Durham. The lines remained long, people were grabbing shirts for friends that were out of town. Many folks come in the shirt from the previous year.
