Artist Behind 2018 ˿Ƶapp Holiday Card: Jose Ramirez

˿Ƶapp awards Jose Ramirez $500 and 25 printed cards for his 2018 Holiday Card design.

Jose Ramirez, inspired by the painting style of Bob Ross, created the artwork selected in the 2018 annual student design competition for the ˿Ƶapp Holiday Card.

“Winter as One” depicts several animals working together and playing the snow.

“It portrays a diversity of woodland creatures, wearing ˿Ƶapp colored scarfs, as they spread some winter holiday cheer by building a snowman,” said Ramirez. “I wanted my image to have a realistic feel, yet, I played around and ended up with a fun playful look.”

Each year, one design is selected from work submitted by ˿Ƶapp students. Ramirez receives $500 from the ˿Ƶapp Foundation and 25 printed copies of the card that features his artwork. The card is emailed to ˿Ƶapp students, faculty, and staff, and mailed to community members and ˿Ƶapp Foundation members by ˿Ƶapp President & CEO Leigh B. Goodson, Ph.D.

Ramirez created the digital art using Adobe Photoshop as a student in ˿Ƶapp Assistant Professor Cristina Umezawa’s Adobe InDesign class.

“For this project I didn’t want to use something you'd typically see in holiday cards like reindeer and penguins. Instead, I chose to go with something more original and used a squirrel in the snow. Then to symbolize ˿Ƶapp’s diversity, I included other animals such as a cardinal and bunny,” says Ramirez.