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?

Developing my idea..

After reflecting on the work I have done already I have come to the conclusion that the designs do not really have a distinguished identity. Looking at other designs I can see that it is clear what kind of ethos the poster is presenting however it is unclear in my own designs. In order to overcome this I am going to brand the posters and possibly re branded a music promotion company to fit the "Nottingham Loves" theme.

I will take the 'Black Market' brand that is traditionally linked with Rock, Punk and Ska and turn it into a brand that promoted live music as a whole in Nottingham. In doing this it will provide me with a better idea of who and what the posters would be promoting.

The designs will follow the lines of 'Black Market Presents... Nottingham Loves...'. This will give the whole project its own identity and general 'vibe' which is very important when promoting events.

More designs to follow...

Inspiration from observation

Whilst working on this project I have found myself taking more notice of designs around me that are currently being used to promote live music in public places such as outside different venues. By taking pictures of these posters it has helped me generate better and often more effective design solutions. 

My starting point has changwd since I have started using other designs as inspiration.  For example before I would just dive into Photoshop, set the page to the size I need and start putting things in. Now I experiment with typography and colour schemes in a separate document before I start to build the product, as a result I am thinking more about the steps I am completing to end up with the final design. 

Experimenting with styles

I have been experimenting with different styles of colour schemes and typograpghy for my Nottingham loves design project. I started completing different design within one document so that I could easily compare them against each other and as a result easily see what works well what necessarily doesn't.

I started designing with the idea of simplicity in mind consequently I used minimal colours or at least colours that complimented each other. I feel this is the best approach to take when designing for the audience the brief specifies. The typography is also very simple and easy to read. However I feel that a lot more time than I anticipate would have to be put into the background of the final design so that it doesn't not clash with the typograpghy or colours. though this is a very simple part of the design it is also one of the most important.

I will continue to build on these designs creating a good layout appropriate colour scheme for the other features of the final design. 

Targeting an audience

When researching what sort if styles of graphic design has already been used to target 16 to 24 years olds (target audience set by brief) i started to look at promotional material that is currently around as well as work i have done to target similar audiences in the past.

I first found some old work I worked with when working at Detonate, a Drum n Bass and Dubstep night club night promoter based in Nottingham.

I looked at the examples below

After my time after working at detonate working on events that often involved music such as rock, blues, folk and punk it was refreshing looking back at old work where i was working with designs that were aimed at a much younger audience. I realised that these designs often involved much less intricate designs and focused on the use of block colour and simple shapes twinned with a much more contemporary fonts. In order to create a 'Nottingham Loves Live Music' poster that targets the desired audience I must go back to basics and try to forget my current thought process that I use when designing for a punk or folk audience and adopt a different method of design.

 I will sketch some ideas to see what I can make work....

Working on other posters and flyers

Below are some poster designs that I have recently done. from these I can evaluate them to see what works well and what doesn't. I can also get a greater idea of where I need to improve when I look at them all together. It is also a good opportunity to work on posters that will be used for high profile gigs around Nottinghamshire.

Research project and first steps

Away from my university project work I am also undertaking projects of my own. I am still working for Ferocious Dog as a instrument technician as well as acting as the designer for there promotional material and merchandise. Also I am working on my own business ventures as a music promoter.

As these are some major projects I am working on away from university I have decided to undertake a research project that brings my work tasks into my university work. By making the project more personal it has made it much easier to understand and as a result more rewarding.

My research topic:

How has the introduction of the internet affected the deployment of print based media within the music industry?

I basically want to find out what is the best way to promote a live music event, where it be print based e.g. posters and flyers or by the use of social media. or what would be the best way to combine print media and internet based media to greater increase the public awareness of the event.

For one of my artefacts I am putting on a live music event and will promote it using different methods and eventually see which one works best when it comes to the night of the event by the use of a survey and general observations. The event is currently costing me around £1300 so it is my own interest to undertake this project in a professional and effective way.

I first made a run of flyers to hand out at shows around Nottinghamshire as well as announcing the event on social media sites. I will continue do this until Christmas. a more aggressive campaign will then start as we get closer to the event.

below is a copy of the flyer:

Assigned Client Project - Inspiration and initial prototype

For the 'Nottingham Loves...' brief I have chosen to undertake the designing of several posters and flyers in the style of Live Music posters and Festival promotional posters. The theme will be 'Nottingham Loves Live Music'.

I started to look at existing promotional material for festivals that i have been at this year as I know the general ethos of the festival as a result I can more easily tell whether the designs compliment it.

Below are some examples I looked at

After looking at several different posters and flyers I began evaluating them. It became very apparent that the most important aspect were the colour scheme and the typography. I also noticed that a lot of information had to be put into a small space making the design of the layout very complex.

After taking not of what worked well and what I felt didn't work well in the above posters I began to make a very quick prototype in Photoshop without seeing out any ideas before hand just to experiment with typography and colour.

Obviously this poster is very rough and has an abundance of different fonts, effects and text size however I wanted to see what worked well in my own design. I feel the colours used however work very well as text can be easily read over it and also it is not bland and boring to look at. The layout will need a lot of work doing to it in order for it to look good as well as fulfil its purpose, I will sketch out some ideas that may work for this before the next prototype.