LockedIn is LinkedIn for Wizards and Warlocks! Process story on Forge's New Print

I woke up one day and I wanted to make a keyring. I love making embroidered keyrings and I wanted to release a new one, I had an idea to riff on the “Locked In” meme with wizards, and thought it was funny because if you had your keys on the keyring in your hand, you would not be locked in - if anything you’d be locked out

For some reason, and maybe I was thinking so deeply about wizards, but I knew I wanted a black letter style typeface, so I set out to find the perfect one, and I did. This typeface to me is very modern black letter, I like that it’s legible and has some interest in the letters. I also knew I wanted to use pinks, greens and blues for the keyring.

As I was transfixed on making The Perfect Embroidered Keyring it struck me that LockedIn looked like LinkedIn and that sent me on a whole path of then thinking about a Wizarding Professional Social Networking Platform, I knew I had to make this into more than just a keyring, it needed to be a whole ass thing.

I started off by drawing some wizards in black and white and I wanted to add some shadows for colour dimension. I also started to write some silly copy. I know LinkedIn is always banging on about “premium” so I used to Latin term Praemium for LockedIn. I thought a WarLockedIn Conference would be on brand too.

I added in some endorsements, icon style elements, hashtags and all the other *things* you see hanging around on LinkedIn if you spend too much time on there. The whole time I’m just thinking about what the wizarding world would do if LockedIn existed.

When I’m laying everything out, I like to think in chunks and blocks - kind of like Tetris! I like to think about how the content stacks and how to fill the page without it being too visually overwhelming. Usually I try to stick to maximum 5 colours and typefaces.

Job ads are also a thing, so I made one for a UX Wizard, which is funny, because I’ve definitely seen that written on LinkedIn in the last few years! Usually for companies that claim to be “edgy”. Playing with words has always been a love of mine, and making posters like this tickles my brain nicely.

I’m such a fan of the final piece, I pushed myself to use different colours to what I’d normally use. The chain border looks chunky but on brand, it feels whimsical but in a parallel universe business way - this is how I think warlocks and wizards would do a social networking program! This is available now on the website to purchase in A4 and A3!

You can buy your own copy here, it's best in A3! And A4 works too! LockedIn

The keyrings are available too! Upgrade your keys here!

Thank you for listening to another fun, quirky story by Forge Forward :)