JPAC's Hairspray

Below is a flyer I created for a Chicago theater troupe's production of the Broadway musical Hairspray.  I was instructed to use the offical Hairspray logo, which I did, and then I played with the funky color scheme to create the text boxes for the dates and information.  The TV was created from scratch and the picture of people dancing is actually people doing DDR.  I altered the photo using photoshop to look like old television in the style of American Bandstand to go along with the story of Hairspray.

If you are in the Chicago area you should check out the production.  Go to www.jpactheater.com to find out more!

The Wayward Email

This is a poster for an upcoming production from the Surfside Players Theatre Troupe called "The Wayward Email".  An earlier design of the poster was posted as a combined 2-show postcard (click here for link).  The play is a farce in which a man wants to send an email to his girlfriend inviting her to meet him at a resort for a romantic weekend, and accidently sends it to his entire address book instead.  Hilarity ensues, of course.

The inspiration for this poster was obviously a Windows-style computer window open like an email.  Although it is a simple design, I had a lot of fun recreating the Windows look from scratch.  As with a lot of these theater posters, there is a lot of information to put in a small amount of space, but I wanted to make sure the heart icon was the central focus.  To further the theme, I tried to make the playwright, director, and dates like the To: From: and Subject: lines of an email, with the details as the body.  11:47 am was actually when I finishing up the design, so I tossed that on there for the Windows clock.  Good luck with the performance, Surfside!

Urban Chick, Phase 4

After the color scheme was finalized and the logo was almost done, I was asked to alter the K to attempt to play up the "Urban Chic" part of the name.  I submitted a few designs, and this inversion of the black and white letter K was agreed upon by all parties involved as the best.  Below is the final Urban Chick logo. 

Currently, I am using this logo for business cards and flyers, which will be posted as they are finalized. Thanks for reading!

Urban Chick, Phase 3

Once it was decided that the Subway design should be the main focus, the owner requested a different color scheme because they wanted something brighter, but not cute.  After trying out different color schemes using anywhere from one color to six colors, different patterns, etc., I landed on this color scheme which kept the randomness of the placement of the colors, but still had a coherent look to it.

This design uses a white background and no outlines, and below is a design which uses a black background with an outline around the letters to help them pop.  

The black background was the winner of this round, but it is not quite done yet!  Tomorrow I will unveil the final design, which will be seen on the storefront sign and print materials when the store opens in July.

Urban Chick, Phase 2

After the first rough designs were sorted through, we were left with the Easter-palate logo and the Subway logo, so I tried a number of different versions of each, because neither I, nor the owner, felt we had the final design yet.

One thing I tried was an inverted version of the Easter-palate logo with brighter colors to get the image above.

A request I had was to play up either the "chic" or "ur chic" in the Subway designs.  I tried a number of different ways of accomplishing this, including using different colors, different fonts, different shapes behind the letters, etc.  Most of them didn't feel like it wasn't the direction we wanted to go.  Here is one of the versions which played up the "ur chic":

One of the side effects of these types of designs was that it also tended to emphasize "bank" more than was desired.

Eventually, the Easter-palate design was thrown out for being a little too cute for what the owner is going for and the Subway design was chosen as the model to use from this point forward.

More to come!

Urban Chick Boutique in Cincinnati, Phase 1

For a while now I have been working on a commission to design the logo for a women's accessories and clothing boutique opening up in Anderson Twp. in Cincinnati called "Urban Chick".  The logo will eventually be printed on the store's sign as well as business cards and various print items.  I was given very few guidelines so I began by creating some quick drafts of possibilities, the best of which are shown below:

In this design, I was going for a light, perky and fun look using random-sized ovals and an Easter palate, as well as a font that I think is really cool called "Party".

 

 The owner described her boutique as having a "New York City feel" so in order to capture that, I created this design inspired by the NYC Subway lines, using roughly the same color scheme as the existing lines.  Since there are no U, H, I, or K lines, I used black for those letters, and the result was a design that didn't have a clear pattern or any immediately apparent uniformity, which I believe worked well and helped to convey the city atmosphere.

 

This design used the same "Party" font as before but I put it in front of a rough cutout of the Cincinnati skyline with yellow font on black to evoke the idea of city lights at night. 

In tomorrow's post I will show the next phase of the design process for Urban Chick's logo and branding, as we narrowed down the designs and played with colors. 

Website is Live!

I recently completed a website for James M. Wilsman Co., L.P.A. You can check it out here: http://www.jmwilsmanlaw.com/

or click on the screenshot below: