Finished night poster - New challenges

Below is the finished Nottingham Loves poster for the night-time half. I think that the light levels and colours really help to compliment the night concept even though I have not used realistic looking images. There is a good ambiance and feel to the poster, maybe even mysterious? 

However now there is the challenge of making the Daytime poster have the same kind of feel to it without the use of ambient light. The colours must compliment this poster even though they will be different in terms of shades and saturation. The typography must also remain the same but without the night time glow of light used.

Getting these aspect right to create the right look for the poster will be difficult however if done right both posters will compliment each other and look good within the market as a piece of 'promotional art' 

Safe to continue?

Looking back on the progress of this project and graphic design concept I am working on I begin to reflect on whether the ideas are actually starting to come together and look like a real and potentially successful project.

I think that the concept I am working on is a risky one for several reasons, the first of which is the fact that I have never approached the design of a poster promoting live music in this way before. I have usually put more time and effort into the layout and colour schemes often using very simple images that usually relate to certain bands or a specific genre. However as I am approaching this work as sort of genre-less piece there are no specific images I could use, I am also not promoting a certain band or artist consequently there is nothing from press packs that I could use to dictate certain aspects of the design. This has however forced me to think more about audience. I am targeting 16-24 year olds who do not necessarily know anything about live music in Nottingham, so including an image of the town hall was a necessary design solution as it would be instantly recognisable. I do not believe I could use images linked with smaller venues as it would not be instantly recognisable. it is my aim that the poster that I am designing would influence these people to look further into the music scenes.

Which brings me onto another risk with this project concept. Is it risky to design a poster promoting live music which has little, if any of the usual conventions that most gig posters have? I think this is a risk however it frees the poster up to be more of a piece of artwork rather than a gig poster with purpose. This makes me think more about where these designs would be placed in the market. My idea would be to put the posters up in all areas of Nottingham that host live music events of any kind, in my opinion this would show an audience that all the venues and artists around the city are linked by a common love of music, consequently promoting the fact that the music scene is wide and varied and is supported my all people involved. This could be compared with things used by charities such as the poppy appeal, everybody where a poppy to show there respect. the posters I am designing would show an appreciation of live music around Nottingham. By using the design idea of using two posters to get across a message of one, people will notice which posters are used in each location, the 'Daytime' design and the 'Night-time' design and as a result make a link between the places they are used within the market.

I have to think that if this project was for a large client with alot of backing, would they go for risky design solutions like this? or stick to the norms? Something to think about later....

Starting to build the poster

After completing a simplified digital version of the Nottingham town hall i began to put the posters together. I have decided to make two posters that could be used together.

the poster will say something along the lines of "Nottingham loves live music.... day & night. one poster for day and another for night.

I first settled on colour schemes then started experimenting with light for the night-time poster.
Below is my work so far...

 Day

















Night

Town Hall art progress

After experimenting with shadows and textures i have settled on a look for the art, I will also do a blue version for another poster. I feel that once the background is filled in and ambience is added to the image it will make up part of an effective poster design

Making Nottingham Town Hall into contemporary art...

Building upon my previous ideas i have begun turning a photograph of the town hall into a simplified two colour image for use in the poster. I am just taking the basic and most prominent shapes from the building rather than creating a detailed look. I have several ideas for the poster but I need to finish this image in order to explore them.

I am finding this task challenging as I must et the create the right perspective in order for the image to look right and for the audience to immediately tell what it is.

Artwork within Nottingham? A few thoughts...

After playing with several ideas of what to put onto the poster I decided to go back to the beginning and brainstorm what is usually associated with Nottingham and how it could be used in an artistic way.

As this is a music poster I need to keep the design engaging and exciting but still link it with the city of Nottingham, the use of images of things such as the town hall, the trams and Robin Hood are vastly used around the city, could I put a different spin on these ideas to make them fresh so that they would look good on a gig poster?

I have noticed that on other posters and websites for festivals, the designer has often included landmarks from the location of the festival within the artwork, for example the Bearded Theory website, it includes a very colourful image of Catton Hall, where the festival is situated.

Could I make the Town Hall look like a hypothetical venue for live music?

Promotion into art?

After looking at a vast amount of gig posters out there that are currently in circulation and some older ones it occurred to me that the line between promotional materials and art is blurring. posters are becoming artefacts that the band uses for more than just promotional purposes.


http://vimeo.com/46442318

After watching this video about the design process for a Dave Matthews Band show in Florida a noticed certain things. more effort went into the aesthetics of the poster such as the images used and colour scheme over content. the useful information such as the location of the show and date where sort of 'hidden' within the image forcing the viewer to look deeper into the image to get the message, but would people really do this for a gig poster? No information on ticket prices, stage times or how to get tickets were included on the poster. But does the poster need this information.


Before the internet how else would bands and artists get the word out about each individual show without using posters? however now there is no cheaper way to promote shows than the use of email newsletters, social media etc sop why would a band pay for posters to be made and distributed for each show, which nearly renders them obsolete.

It could be said that posters are devoid of purpose, which also frees them up to become art which as a result gives them a purpose once more.

Things to explore....
Does my design have to have 'useful' information on it?
Can I just focus on the art?
What kind of art would suit a Nottingham based show?