Matt Watson is a man of many interests.
When he’s not patrolling the midfield at Toyota Park, you might find the 30-year-old producing beats or spending time in Chicago with his wife and kids. But Watson also has a serious eye for graphic design, so when he was asked if he wanted to create the latest Chicago Fire Matchday Poster for Saturday's match with Orlando City SC, he took on the challenge.
“I enjoy it,” Watson said. “I enjoy things that are aesthetically pleasing, something that’s part of my life. I like how things look. I’m a very visual learner. I’ve just always enjoyed messing with it.”
2015 Chicago Fire Matchday Posters
Art has been an hobby of Watson’s since his childhood in England, when he was taught by his best friend. He’s carried on dabbling in different forms, taking on some design projects to assist current and former teammates and recently contributed a piece to the Chicago Paints the World fundraiser benefiting the charitable foundation of Chicago Bears running back Matt Forte. Watson's experience with the Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop programs gave him a good idea of how to go about designing the #CHIvORL poster.
Watson started his work by creating a spin-off of the Orlando City SC lion in Illustrator. Then, he went about trying to figure out how to best represent Chicago in the poster.
“It’s hard for us, because we just have the ‘C’ for a logo, so I tried to do something inventive,” he said. “I’m not from here, but people are very proud to be from Chicago, so I put the city rising up from the flames above the lion.”
WATCH: Matt Watson Visits CSN Chicago
He found that the hardest part was fading from the lion’s mane into the flames. Once he had reached a design of his liking, he took the image to Photoshop in order to apply texture and put the finishing touches on it.
Early on in the process, Watson wasn’t sure how the poster would turn out. But after setting it aside and coming back to it a few times, he found that the final product had met his personal expectations.
“Sometimes when you step away from something, you come back and look at it with fresh eyes,” he said. “The more I did it, it started to go the way I wanted. Towards the end, I was like, ‘Yeah, I really like this.’ I’m proud of what I’ve done.”
Watson has also been known to have a keen eye for fashion, and with the Chicago Fire Foundation's third-annual Soccer & Style Fashion Show set for Wednesday, he recently ventured downtown to ask Chicagoans about their own fashion tastes. Check out the video from CSN Chicago below:
