Each year the Transit Authority of River City puts on a student art contest called Design-a-Bus. Students in the Greater Louisville region are allowed to submit art on a pre-determined theme, and the winners have their art placed on a TARC bus for a full year.
In 2024 TARC partnered with the Kentucky Science Center for the "Periodic Elements of Louisville" project. The contest, part of the celebration of TARC's 50th anniversary, explored 50 local locations, or elements, that make Louisville special. The student art was coupled with other Louisville locations to form a table inspired by the periodic table of elements.
Most of TARC's fleet are lighter buses, so I wanted to do a dark bus for this project. Not only was 2024 the 50th anniversary of TARC, but it was also the 50th anniversary of Mariner 10 sending back the first pictures of Mercury. With this in mind, I decided to combine the 50 places theme, with a sci-fi theme to create this year's bus. I made illustrations in Illustrator and combined them with some of the Kentucky Science Center's icon library.
