EIGHTY SIX GIG POSTER
For this assignment, I was tasked with using my understanding of Adobe Illustrator to create a gig poster for a fictional band. My band is called Eighty Six, targeted towards young to older adults. The music style I was aiming for was alternative rock like AJR, Imagine Dragons, Panic! at the Disco, Fallout Boy, and Jon Bellion.
I created a few mind maps beginning with the words hope, heart, and black. As my maps grew, I was drawn to the words wolf, child, crown, and blood. I experimented with several design ideas, and was wanting to do something with wolf mouths and children hands with a crown motif. I would say my largest struggle was picking a style and composition that felt simple yet unique. I didn't want to do the tired design of someone wearing a wolf on their head. But I couldn't quite land on what I was searching for.
After some feedback and searching other designs, I was really interested in the idea of playing cards. I haven't really seen them stylistically done beyond the traditional decks, so I began to explore the concept. As I did, I found I really enjoyed the idea of using a crown in place of one of the card houses' symbols. I also wanted to incorporate the hand in the traditional hands that carry the swords on the King card.
This first two drafts were my initial ideas. I once again was struggling with how I wanted to do the style on the wolves. Feedback suggested that I look at Art Nouveau. This style mixes very sharp angles with more fluid shapes, usually in gold and black patterns or more desaturated nature tones. Since I was doing an animal with more fluid, fur lines with the geometric crowns, the suggestion was to marry the two by using Art Nouveau as an example.
As I applied the concept of mixing two different styles with a more intentional design, I was happier and happier with the poster. I used the geometric shapes in the crowns in the jawlines of the wolves. This was further helped with creating a diamond pattern that harkened back to the geometrics, as well as the traditional playing card look. Then with the wolves, I used fluid lines to outline them, as well as create curving segments that are often found in the clothing on King cards.
The final touches were applying the textures on top of the card and rounding the edges. I wanted a worn texture, but after I applied it I found that it was detracting too much from the details. To solve this, I copied the card graphic and layered it on top of the worn texture. I then lowered the opacity of the topmost layer to create a look that maintained the level of detail I wanted, while also giving that wear and tear feel.
I really love the look of this poster. The L is meant to allude to "Loser" instead of being a "King" as a form of subversion. Channeling Art Nouveau as inspiration, the combination of geometric shapes with fluid lines resulted in a style that I think creates an interesting and exciting composition without being too loud. The name Eighty Six calls back to the phrase, "86 it," where you ask for the cancellation or removal of something. I enjoyed making this card and I'm loving the final look. In the future I plan to delve more into Art Nouveau and experimenting with the untapped potential of subverted playing cards.
