:THE MIDNIGHT MOVIE SOCIETY: Quadrophenia

For the third installment of The Midnight Movie Society, it was held at a different venue, and showed Quadrophenia. Hadn't heard of it before, but after some light research on google images, I gathered that it's a film about Mods and Mod culture. I LOVE Mods! I would consider myself a faux-Mod, sans scooter and mini skirt. Anyway.

The big thing seemed to be the scooter, and from a few other things I saw around there, it was about the nitty-gritty of English suburbia, about rebellion and what-not. Mods were just the precursors to Punk. So, I threw in a crumpled up paper texture to give it a weathered look. The Mod bullseye was a given, and I did a live trace in Illustrator for the scooter. It wasn't my intention initially to show only part of the bike, but when I placed it into Indesign, it came that way, so it stuck. I opted to do a white poster instead of the black frame I did for the other two (different venue, different style). Much easier with small type, as in print, this was 3.75" wide.

:TRANSMISSION: 3rd Year Anniversary @ Club Jäger

Holy change-of-pace, Batman! Here's something quite unexpected from me. Wacky alignments, for starters. Big type treatments. I pulled my aesthetic, momentarily, about 30-40 years back.

I'm not going to say I tire of the more modern, 1960s bauhaus approach, I just feel that after a while, people will start to think that's all I'm capable of (and I'm not). And I wanted to see if I could channel an entirely different era of design, while still putting my stamp all over it.

So, I get the message from Jake that Transmission's anniversary with Jager is coming up, and he threw out a few ideas, one of them being "having a big 3," and immediately I knew what I was going to do.

See, I never sketch thumbnails. Never ever ever. I've also never met a designer or teacher who implores you to do thumbnail sketches, because they speed up your process. Well bollocks to that. This is how I design:

1. Get a subject
2. Create the design in my head
3. Execute design in Adobe programs, generating ideas as I go.

I'm a fast worker, especially in InDesign, so I find thumbnail sketches, really, to be a waste of energy. Plus I can never be as precise as I want.

(I will admit that one time thumbnails did get me on track to a great design, but that was in school, and I was required to sketch)

Anyway, last week I was really digging early soviet designs, constructivism, and Bauhaus design. So, I was like yeah, I'm going to do this all angle-y and what-not. Big 3, since that was the main point, and then just playing with alignments, and throwing in some lines.

See HERE for my inspiration. It's a New Order sleeve, but it's ACTUALLY a design by Depero Fortunato, a big name in the Italian Futurism movement.

I made this poster in 20 minutes, because of a couple reasons:

1. That's how I work, and
2. I collect inspiration daily, so I didn't even have to go looking for any. It was there, and ready.

{Tip for designers: Always be curious, always be looking for inspiration. Nothing in this world is new, nothing is original. In order to be creative, you need to steal creatively. Learn about other eras, about the importance of certain design movements. Collect, collect, collect. I have a folder on my computer of more than 500 images, all designs that I've collected, just whatever catches my eye. You can't imagine how much they've helped me.

For more on how my collection process works, see HERE. }

Jake ended up finding a few more reasons why the poster worked for a night (apart from it being based on a New Order sleeve), which was that it was reminiscent of a few other bands that employed the similar style. He also correctly identified that it was 1920's/socialist/propaganda influenced.

:2010: March

Muddy, muted colors, but with promise of spring to come.

:KING'S WINE BAR: Celebrating Eno

This one was definitely months in the making--without me even realizing it.

See back in the month of October I went through this phase where I was perfecting the craft of colored lines. The color strategy I originally had with this one went towards the Across The Board poster.

This started out as a fake Transmission poster. I thought if he ever had a Synth night coming up, I could use this scheme, because the lines are abstract and expressive, ambient, but also somewhat cold and technical--much like synth music is. The grey background and thin Futura type were also the same. Then this Brian Eno night came up (and a Synth night at Transmission DID happen, but there was not official enough for a poster).

Brian Eno is like, the godfather of Synthesizer music. He revolutionized it. I remember listening to an interview with him (also back in October) on the radio, where he talked about the Synthesizer being 1 of only 2 reasons he was able to get involved in the music industry (the other being the recording studio). I knew when Jake handed me this assignment, I already had my design pre-meditated, and all I needed to do was fill in the blanks. I think for anyone who knows anything about Brian Eno, they will see how this poster captures his essence perfectly.

:BRIT'S PUB: We Can Work It Out

I actually made this for Jake, not Brit's Pub officially (I just didn't know how to categorize it!). Basically, this sounded like the funnest night ever, and I was gutted I was not going to be able to attend.

The Beatles are by far the most important thing in my life EVER, so I was stoked I got to do a poster with them. Jake suggested maybe some mop tops, and from there I came up with this concept. It made me realize how much I actually suck at Illustrator. I don't do Live Trace, so the illustrations were done by hand, but, in the spirit of those Swinging Sixties, which was appropriate. I made their instruments into little Rock Band controllers, and finished it out with a sassy Union Jack. At first I really liked the textured background, but now I find it a little much. My thinking was an old poster you might've seen back in the day when the lads were playing a small club gig... Back before they became the biggest band ever.

Then this got put in vita.mn, but someone (I don't know who), made a whole lot of edits to it, which I was not too happy to see.

:THE MIDNIGHT MOVIE SOCIETY: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

Part II in the series. Concept was about 100x easier to come up with and execute in contrast to the previous one...

:2010: February

I guess I went a bit gimmicky with this one. It's a heart, see?
(I'm playing catch-up, as you can see)