ICE CREAM & VIOLINS Double-sided postcard heralding Ice Cream & Violins Day. Part of a group school project: We each chose a food-related holiday, designed a postcard, and packaged the cards together as a gift. I tried to conjure up a vision of a ’50s-era ice cream parlor, with its own peculiar spin on the Gay ’90s and the Victorian era (hence the choice of Playbill and slightly cheesy ornaments, which I think perfectly capture this aesthetic). The back of the card is meant to suggest the signs listing the various flavors on offer. I also worked with the idea of synesthesia—in this case, delicious music—and, of course, I was playing with positive and negative space. I had a wonderful breakthrough moment while wracking my brain to come up with a visual for this strange holiday. I’d unknowingly imposed an artificial constraint on myself by thinking only of ice cream cones. When I suddenly remembered ice cream on a stick—bingo.