Where’s Walfredo? A Phish seek-and-find

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Where’s Walfredo?

A Phish-inspired seek-and-find experience

Gus Morais was invited by Printfly vice-president Jason Haft to develop a personal project: a search-and-find illustration based in the magical history, life and career of american jam band Phish.

During more than 2 years of constant creation, Where’s Walfredo? artwork evolved from a personal project to a funny and complex commercial project that resulted in the publishing of a sold-out deluxe poster by NY experts from Bottleneck Gallery, a decorated WagnerSkis pair of skis, a puzzle set and many other derived products.

The music universe from Phish is very imaginative. The illustration shows lots of references to many songs and lyrics from each Phish album, depicting also many events from specific concerts and moments from the bands history. The Walfredo name that is part of the project’s title is actually a reference to a Phish song and to the talented drummer Walfredo Reyes Jr., who is loved by the Phish fanbase and that occasionally shared great experiences with the band.

Here's Walfredo! Can you find him in the poster?

Detail from the top area of the poster, where we can see the band members playing.

Phish fanbase is huge and passionate. We were able to depict many of the fans performing funny actions at the concert, like having fun, dancing, wearing curious self-made costumes or even selling their self-made Phish-inspired-products at the Shakedown street fair.

Many of the Shakedown Street booths were named after Phish song names or famous lyrics.
Some existing business also appear here, like the Bottleneck Gallery booth selling posters.

Some famous kinds of food found in Phish concerts can be found here too: from Gumbo to fresh Veggie Wraps!

We also spread 13 donuts through the scenario. Phish is known for their donut’s references, from Baker’s Dozen special donut s menu, to the pink donuts pattern that appears in a fan dress here. Can you spot some of them?

Many famous artists are die-hard fans of the band and have collaborated with Phish during last decades. Also, the band has made many creative cover versions of important musicians, and we were excited to add them to the illustration as well. Here are some concepts of some musicians that you can spot among the crowd, like Prince and Bob Dylan.

Above, we can spot the concert’s VIP area, which was reserved to unite many of music gods that inspired
Phish and that are no longer among us: David Bowie, Prince and many others.

A limited series of printed giclée posters was produced and sold-out in december 2021 by Bottleneck Gallery from NY, specialized in top-quality pop culture fine prints. One year later, I’ve updated the illustration with lots of new drawings presenting new Haft’s ideas, and it was released a 1000 pieces puzzle by BNG.

Many fans around the world framed their posters like the video above.

The puzzle set contained a 1000 pieces puzzle, a folded printed poster and also the key poster with all latest references and easter eggs.
More than 2000 boxes were sold so far.

Some specific figures of the drawing, like the band members and some song-related characters,
were printed as QR code stickers and given away in social media promotions and Phish concerts.

After two years of intense creation process, we’ve achieved the mark of 664 easter eggs and references.
We had included in the latest version illustrated references for:

- 201 Phish songs and covered songs

- 193 Phriends and Phamily

- 82 Varied easter eggs

- 56 Covered musicians, guests and collaborators

- 33 Notable Events in Phish history

- 29 Band, crew and staff members

- 15 Studio album covers

- 13 Bakers’ Dozen donuts

- 11 Festivals

- 21 Characters and Objects from Phish's Gamehendge lore

To celebrate this mark and make it easier for fans to find everything, I’ve developed a printed key that was delivered as a special item for the puzzle buyers. A huge and detailed poster needed a huge key too, so
we’ve printed it large in A3 format! See it below:

You can keep tracking Where’s Walfredo? project updates in instagram. I’d like to thank Jason Haft for the great opportunity and all support in discussing ideas, sharing references and helping with research information. I’d also like to thank all the Phish fan base that embraced my work in a very funny and passionate way.