100 Days of Peoria

100 Days of Peoria

100 Days of Peoria is a passion project of Lettering Works, a Peoria-based custom lettering and design company. Owner and designer, Chelsie Tamms, came up with the project during her six-month artist residency at the Prairie Center for the Arts in Peoria’s Warehouse District. It began as a poster series titled “One City, Six Ways” - with six classifications of people and accompanying illustrated recommendations of what they might enjoy. The six categories are Peoria for the Culturalist, Peoria for the Entrepreneur, Peoria for the Hipster, Peoria for the Eco-Friendly, Peoria for the Family, and Gourmet Peoria.

The project quickly grew beyond the roughly 50 locations and events that were represented in the posters and evolved into a daily drawing project, featuring 100 Peoria businesses and attractions. The daily drawings ran from January 1st, 2017 until April 10th, 2017. Because of the popularity of the account and development across Peoria, an encore month was added in August 2017. Following the completion of all hand-lettered illustrations, a Kickstarter was launched in September 2017 to turn 100 Days of Peoria into a book. In just 39 days, 63 Kickstarter backers raised $2,526. The book features 130+ hand-lettered and illustrated designs and is available for purchase locally at The Peoria Riverfront Museum, Peoria Airport, and Urban Artifacts, as well as online at www.letteringworks.com.

There is a possibility that the project will be extended once again to showcase the continued development of Peoria and highlight the thriving small business community and all that Peoria has to offer.