Hopscotch Posterscotch

So as many of you know, music and art are two of my favorite things. I found out about this event called Hopscotch through the wonderful peeps over at Gravity Records. Matt Keen is a social media giant, as well as vinyl enthusiast, who turned me on to the event one day in a tweet.

Hopscotch Music Festival is a 3 day music through down. This years even is being headlined by Flaming Lips and Guided by voices. They also announced the first POSTERscotch to coincide with the Hopscotch Festival. Posterscotch is basically a way to promote local North Carolina Artist who specialize in the Gig Poster realm. To kick off the inaugural event they opened up a contest for any North Carolina artist to put together a poster for the event. The only stipulations were it had to contain the dates of the event, Raleigh and Hopscotch Music Festival.

Here are all the posters that were entered. It was a long weekend of tweeting and facebooking friends to try and round up more votes. There was quite the battle for facebook dominance before a victor finally emerged. Finally with a lead of only 15 votes a poster was announced the winner and participant in a gallery show showcasing the talents of 9 other NC artists. It was Gravity Record's own Sarah Parson, 1/2 of the Posterhound Family Workshop.

I put up a fight and came in third, but was able to celebrate with Eric and Sarah over pancakes this week. We talked about the poster and we taped together the film and began to burn the screens to make her Hopscotch poster. Be sure to check it all out this coming Sept 8-10, 2011.
Many of my sketches can be seen over on my Dribbble page. But here are some other shots of the process and my contribution to the contest. Maybe i'll have better luck next year with rounding up some facebook love to make it into the galleried exhibit. So start spreading the word folks.

Here is my initial sketch, followed by a refined sketch to try and figure out where the type should best be seated in the poster. And of course the final image that was lovingly crafted.




If you're like my wife, you wondering what the crap a cat in a space suit has to do with anything. I've also heard someone ask "I always do wonder, though, why gig posters are so hard to read whilst walking by?" Well the way i see it is simple. You have this wonderful area of space that you get to create within. You can make the type huge so you can read it across the street OR you can make a compelling image that will catch someones eye and cause them to travel across the street to take a closer look. At that point you have them. They are visually digesting the poster and Oh look, there is information about a show coming up. Being an illustrator at heart, i will always put images over type. Well unless its beautifully crafted hand rendered type such as the likes of Jessica Hische. Then you can have a big poster where the info is center stage, cause really it is an art piece by the time she gets done with it.

So back to "Why a can in space?" So basically that is summed up with this...Flaming Lips are headlining. Period. I felt that the sky was the limit for this based solely on the fact that they were headlining. The Flaming Lips are so creative with there live performances and music that i wanted to try and create something that would lend itself to being part of there act or something. I mean when you hear stories of fans bring them there poop and talking about it like some sort of experience and right of passage, a cat in a space suit seems sorta tamed right?


Thanks for stopping by
Till next time,


Doc

Zemanta">

Beta Radio CD Release Show

So i have been working on a poster for the band Beta Radio the last few weeks for there upcoming CD release show. It happening here in town at the SoapBox Laundro Lounge, Friday night September 17th. Doors will open at 9 and the cover is $5. Beta Radio will be playing with some other local favs. Onward, Soldiers and Rio Bravo will be rounding out the bill. Its gearing up to be a grand evening. I encourage any one that can to try and make it out to take in the show.

They had tossed out the idea of having me do a poster or shirt design back a month or so ago. Brent "officially" approached me back at the end of August to come up with a poster for the release show. I had started some doodles and sketches, but things were going in a totally different direction at that point. More illustrative than what i've got going on in the posters now.

Most of the changes came into play when i was flipping through a book Brent picked up. It was Jason Munn's book of posters. Brent is all about some Small Stakes poster design. and i can see why. The guys got some serious talent and simple clean designs that don't need a lot going on with in the actual piece.

I wish i had that kind of clarity and simplicity in my own design work. With that thought i set out, not design a Jason Munn poster but, to edit my own process and try simplifying the page a little more. I feel like i was able to do this in this Beta Radio poster. The poster went through a few initial sketches of this concept before setting into the final layout.

After thinking of a few ideas that really didn't lend themselves to a cd release show, i tried turning my thought more to that frame of mind. That's when the records as balloons concept was born. Cd's just felt weird and out of place (more so than record). I am really excited to get these posters finished. I'm trying a silver ink in the poster which will be a first. Hopefully, not the last. The plan, as of now is to print three versions of the poster. Same design, just switching of the background colors. Here are some process and layout roughs.

Here are the three color options that are going to be printed.

Here is the final that is going to be produced and sold off. Hope to get some posters down to Gravity Records as well. A few last minute tweaks to help bring some depth to the piece, i ran the twine behind the fingers and wrist.

Hopefully, i have hit on something that everyone can enjoy with these colors. Thanks for stopping in and checking everything out. Hope you enjoyed the visit.


Doc