This year marks 33 YEARS! that the Dogwood Crosstown Classic would be up and running. That's just absolutely ridiculous. Since 1984. Not the longest run tournament in the country but certainly up there with the World Championships.

I got the call to do this years Crosstown from Assistant TD and Cary Area Disc League founder, Jay Pontier. He had an "X-Town/ comic" idea in mind. With the recent boom of Marvel and various comic movies out in theatres the initial idea was of an X-Men theme, some sort of battle between good vs evil. I did one idea on a sheet with a bunch of Dogwood ideas while waiting in the Jury Duty room at the courthouse. With something as unique as the dogwood tree, I just had to stick with the common theme. Maybe next year I can explore a bit more outside the box. This was my first time designing for this tournament and I appreciate Bobby Henn and Jay Pontier for letting this year's Crosstown stamp be in my hands.

Below shows the steps we took from thumbnail to finished stamp. You'll see my first take on the initial idea. As soon as I started tree thumbnails sketches, it was the experimentation of asymmetrical versus centered tree and also circular and rectangular shaped stamps. The final stamp has 33 dogwood flowers spread on the ground, with the center Dogwood being one that's been used in past stamps.

Thanks for taking a look!