To begin with, here are some of my beginning sketches for this project.

These are some designs that I created from researching David LaChapelle's work. I wanted to include certain elements that LaChapelle used in his photographs, like nature, vibrant color, and commercialism.  

This was a practice poster that i rendered in Adobe Illustrator. As my research progressed, I learned that LaChapelle was a strong practicing Catholic, and would often use religious imagery in his work or even make modern recreations of famous religious art. LaChapelle's work was often photographed in black and white and then he would hand paint them bold colors that often seemed out of place and shocking to the image it's self. In this poster, I thought about how a magazine like the New York Times would be formatted when displaying his kind of work. In this practice poster, I created a collage of different tropical plants and foliage that I was able to find, and then changed the color value of the images in photoshop. I then found an image of a statue of the Virgin Mary centered it on the background collage and shifted the color value as well.

Below are a few reference images of LaChapelle's work that I used when creating this project. A lot of his work starred celebrities, and would often be placed in these extreme settings and situations where Man, Nature, and God would all be connected in one scene.

This is LaChapelle's recreation of Botticelli's "Venus and Mars" painting. Lachapelle title this photograph "The Rape of Africa."

Here is my final poster. I decided to take the collage that I created for my practice poster and then create a clipping mask of it to lay into the D. I decided to go with a Blackletter font that would be reminiscent of biblical text and illuminated lettering and to use the full name of my artist. In this poster, I wanted to have a strong burst of color and thought that the magenta pink that he often used in his art work would be an excellent choice for a background. I bordered the frame with gold lining and outlined the D with the same gold coloring thereby giving it more of an illuminated manuscript look while maintaining a modern edge. The contrast between the image inside of the D and the background color gives the type and name a pop while conveying what it is that this artist's work is about.

I decided to use a san serif font for the exhibition and biography portion of this poster as to not conflict with the dramatic serif font in the name of my artist.