Penny Livingston says being the winner of this year’s Pine Knob Music Theatre poster competition with Detroit’s College For Creative Studies “still feels so surreal” — partly because the student from Farmington Hills has never been to Pine Knob.

“I hadn’t really heard of it, either. I haven’t gone to many concerts,” says Livingston, 23, who attended her first concert — Taylor Swift in Toronto — in November.

She’ll finally make it to Pine Knob this summer, for AJR’s concert on July 29 (she and a friend splurged for pavilion seats). But before that, Livingston’s artwork will be seen by those headed out to the amphitheater for its 2025 season, which kicks off with Halsey’s concert on Wednesday, June 11, and currently has 39 concerts booked into early October.

This is the third year for the poster competition, a partnership with 313 Presents that’s presented to students via Don Kilpatrick, CCS’s chair of illustration. Livingston was new to it all last fall. “I really wanted to see what goes into poster design and how that part of illustration works, so I chose to take that class,” she said. “On the first day when they told us about (the competition), it was a really cool surprise. I had no idea, so that was really awesome.”

Livingston began researching Pine Knob, “finding out what’s, like, the niche little things … just to see what it looked like, what people loved. Obviously the hill, that was a huge part of it. And I wanted to incorporate something that was very recognizable and very symbolic of the place.” After an initial idea was scrapped, she created an image of a guitar with a Pine Knob ticket stub (dated July 2, 2025, when Weird Al Yankovic will be performing) slipped between its strings.

The top part of the poster — which will be distributed free to patrons at select concerts during the season — features a list of the summer’s concerts.

“I started thinking about what people love about concerts,” Livingston explains, “and when you think about those memories, what are the things that represent that, and it was a ticket stub for me. So I wanted to make sure that was part of it, and I loved the idea of having the amphitheater built on a guitar, or some sort of instrument.

“The poster needed to work for any kind of concert, so I wanted to have whatever instrument was common within most bands. The guitar felt very fitting for that. I played around with a microphone for a while, but the guitar kept coming back to me, looking down the strings and seeing the amphitheater at the end. So that was the final combination for (the poster).”

The poster design is part of a lifelong pursuit of art for Livingston, the youngest of two children raised in what she calls “a super-creative environment.”

“I’ve just always been drawing or making something, no matter what I could get my hands on, whatever materials we had around,” says Livingston, whose mother takes metalsmithing classes at CCS, as well. “We have a giant glass window in our sunroom. I grew up painting on that with acrylics, and we could just wash them off later.

“For me, it’s all about expression and just being able to have an outlet and creating and taking a couple ideas and just running with that, as far as possible, and seeing what else I can do with it.”

Livingston had decided to attend CCS while at Farmington High School but opted to delay her entry during the pandemic. “I didn’t want to spend all my classes online when it needs to be hands-on,” she says. Instead, she spent two years at Schoolcraft Community College for her general education requirements and “building up my portfolio” before transferring to CCS.

Studying illustration has been eye-opening, she says. “I didn’t really know anything about illustration before I met the rep from CCS,” Livingston says. “I always thought, ‘I don’t want to copy someone else’s work. I want to be creating something of my own.’ Once they explained to me how it works and how to be an illustrator, it felt very fitting.”

And with her senior year looming, Livingston knows how she’d like to apply her new skill.

“I want to go into book cover design,” she says. “I love to read myself, and the book community has kind of blown up (during) the past few years. There’s been a lot more opportunities for independent authors to get published and covers to be designed, and special editions, too. It feels like there’s a lot more art going into the book world. It’s something I’m interested in personally, but also artistically it’s something I’d love to do.”