DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION GALLERY

I CARE A LOT

I Care A Lot, Valerie Caesar, 2026.

I have a love/hate relationship with graphic design. As a graphic designer by trade, I feel like my response to any design assignment is “Shut the fcuk up talking to me.” However, I spend all my free time admiring all elements and instances of design, whether it be out in the wild on product packaging, poring over pages of design books and magazines, musing in print shops, or falling down the millions of digital design rabbit holes that exist. (This corner of my site is at least partial proof of this obsession.) Images are all around us, and they’re so fcuking thrilling!

Sometimes an image will catch my eye and I’ll challenge myself to recreate it to see if I can figure out and successfully execute the techniques I believe the original artist used. Most of the time, I end up doing something a bit different, just to make it relevant to me.

Here, I was inspired during a perusal of Pinterest, by a poster for a film called I Care A Lot, starring Rosamund Pike. I’d never heard of it, and admittedly, I still know nothing about its plot or nothing, Jesus. But I really dig the simple, 70s style paper-collage style image, with its vivid palette of yellow, green, turquoise and black and set about recreating it.

I always want to make the movie (poster) I wish to see in the world, so I found a cute, freckled, gap-toothed Black model on a stock photo website and used her image for the featured head cutout. As you’ll see from the making of video below, I had to do some creative cloning to flesh out her photo-cropped fro! But her impish expression was perfect for the film plot that began forming in my mind as I made this image. I was going to change the name so that it wasn’t a direct replica of the original and instead acted as a satirical play on it. But as I layered her image onto the words, they took on a sardonic meaning for me.

Again, I don’t know what the original movie’s title alludes to in relation to its plot. However, the movie in my head — the one I actually want to see in real life — Jane Jenkins (the made up stock photo model, apparently turned actress) plays a funky artsy girl from Brooklyn who’s fed up with the mind games played by all the romantic interests she’s ever dealt with. With her new mindset, she decides to go about dating with an entirely new approach. No spoilers, LOL, but I Care A Lot is the antidote to any fcukboy’s venomous bite. (This may or may not be autobiographical to the creator. Mind your business.)

This plot in mind, I modified the design of the original by adding some devilish red horns, in a way that mimics the way movie posters wheatpasted onto construction sites are often defaced, while winking at the possible irony embedded in the earnestness of the title. I like the way the red balances the other cooler colors of the palette. A fake review quote from my favorite and very real Black film festival and culture-maker sealed the deal.

Anyway, check out the “trailer” for I Care A Lot below with sound, for the right vibes. Coming soon to a theater near you!

A CLOSER LOOK

Watch these short videos at the full screen setting to view both the making of and the final version of I Care A Lot in closer detail.