Design a rad Day of the Dead skull to be engraved on metal wallets

We are super stoked for this project and hope to establish a long-term relationship with a stellar designer for projects to come.

We will be deep CNC engraving the design into an aluminum wallet, which uses a similar trigger mechanism to some other popular wallet designs (photo attached). The flat, aluminum surfaces on either side are ideal for incorporating artwork that makes the wallet stylish, flashy and cool!

We are in early stages of bringing this idea to life, so the design will be used for some of our first prototypes, and ultimately for testing with Facebook, Instagram and TikTok ads. Assuming testing goes well, we’re planning to rapidly scale to additional designs. Given this trajectory, we’re excited to establish a long term relationship with one or more top designers beyond this initial project.

Here’s some context on how we’ll use the design: The design will be deep engraved into the flat aluminum surfaces at about 0.2mm depth. After engraving, the wallet will be coated with specialty metal finishes. The finish we’re excited about most creates an oil slick/rainbow coating. What’s super cool about this coating is that the recessed, engraved areas come out in bright purple. This pops out/contrasts well with the oil slick/rainbow colors that appear on the surrounding flat surfaces (example photo attached).

We want the combination of the design and metal finish to be an absolute eye catcher/jaw dropper. We aren’t marketing to the masses, so be wild and creative with your design. Our audience is the hip, flashy, younger crowd. Think fancy cars, expensive watches and hip hop culture in LA or Miami. We’ll be marketing this with young social influencers, so their audience is our target market.

Envision the vibe you get from today’s flashy rappers and influencers. It’s in your face and over the top. We want this for someone who wants to make a bold statement and to standout.

For this design, we’d like you to create a Day of the Dead skull (examples in photos). We’re open to the design including graphics beyond the skull itself (or not), but we want the skull to be the focal point of the design and to consume the majority of available space. As described in the previous section, this design will be deep engraved into the flat aluminum surfaces of a pop out wallet. Following the deep engraving, the wallet will be finished with a specialty metal finish that creates an oil slick/rainbow effect (example photo provided). The recessed, engraved areas will come out bright violet and contrast nicely amongst the rainbow/oil slick surrounding surfaces.

Technical specifications
1. Dimensions: 56 x 97 mm (159 x 275 px) Portrait layout
2. Given the deep engraving and metal finishes, we need the design to use a minimum 2pt line width in Adobe illustrator. This will allow the design to be engraved deep enough for the metal finish to pool in the recessed areas to create the bright violet contrast (example file of dimensions and line width attached).
3. The design must be provided as a black and white .ai file (NO COLORS please). The black sections will be engraved.

We want this design to be original, creative, flashy and to stand out. In striving for originality, we suggest you to do something crazy, take a risk and let your creativity flow! As mentioned previously, we’re marketing this to the affluent, bold, hip, flashy younger crowd. Imagine what would make them like and share on social media and go with that.