The Belly Dancer of the Year Pageant is happening this weekend and I was asked by my ex-girlfriend to do some pro bono work and design the program and a few promo materials. I've never really done anything like this. I've made some websites here and there and designed a couple of posters, invitations and CD labels at work, but nothing as serious or as visible as this program.

I had last year's program to work off. It was pretty dull and amatuerish. I wanted to give it a little more umph and make the whole thing look a little more professional. No typos. Solid typography. (You can click on the image to see what the real printed type actually looks like). If you want to get an idea of how simplistic the design around the Pageant normally is, just check out their website, something I might lend my skills to next year.

Once we decided that we were going with an Art Deco look, it was really a matter of just finding the right pictures to go with the program. Shoshana who won last year's competition was going to be on the cover and I identified this pic and the one I wanted to use because it was so dynamic.

The only problem was that for some reason we weren't able to get full reolution images. I don't know why. Some communication problem with the photogrpaher. Anyway, the photos ended up being a little pixelated because I had to stretch them to 300 dpi for the printer. That's the really the only issue I had with this project. Otherwise I was pretty happy with how it turned out. Esepcially since I'm not a graphic designer and have absolutely no training whatsoever.

You can see all the parts of the program here. I'm curious to know what you think.