Part 3 Assigment 3: A Jazz Evening KS

In order to create a realistic and intriguing poster for my chosen theme “jazz evening” I researched all types of jazz posters and empty poster templates to get a idea of what things are included and how things were positioned, the types of texts and what their composition was and the effect they had. I also paid attention to the colours and the style illustrations they used, it was apparent that many of them involved a saxophone or a piano or a mic. These things were probably used as they are stereotypically things you can associate with the jazz genre and for the style of the overall posters most of them had colours in common; red, white, yellow/gold, black. As far as the typeface they were all different some bolder then other and others with more information on too. This mood board helped me in deciding the main colours and the type of illustration that would attract readers.I also made a moodboard of posters for general music events, There was a lot of range in styles, text, colours and fonts depending on the genre of music or band/artist.

 

 

Next I researched some templates of concert posters for more inspiration on the composition as there are too many choices. I wanted a simple but interesting look and include my own illustrations rather then just colours and test. Seeing these layouts and the text placement made it easier when planning my own designs out

 General music and festival poster.... various genres not just jazz.

 

This Next mood board was for the genre of jazz, I just wanted to see if there were any other things associated with Jazz besides the obvious saxophone and instrument but All it seemed to be where these things. I then decided I wanted to have a saxophone player somewhere on the poster specifically a silhouette. I think Jazz is known for being performed in dim light clubs

Finally, I picked out the main colours of all my mood boards and now create my visuals.

 

Brainstorming and planning

Thinking about the illustration of the saxophone player I wanted I realised that I had a cool looking set of statues in a band in my house and one of them played the saxophone, so this is what I used as a reference. The slender figure not only will leave me room for other things on the poster but it makes it a bit unique rather than a regular image of a human, it fits with my cartoon style of being a bit odd.

I began planning my poster designs playing around with the size of the title and where it fit best, the info was just thrown around hoping that one would make sense and used various illustrations to see which communicated the theme better. I concluded a saxophone and piano would fit best and I could mould my text around the shapes of things. I didn’t have a typeface in mind, but I briefly explored italics and what angle I wanted the saxophone man to be at.Opted for the side profile as you could see the trumpet and features clearer as a silhouette the from straight on.

The poster on the left is the design I chose to use. It has a saxaphone and piano as well as a good amount of space for a title.

Before finally creating my real final poster with the version I picked I drew out a quick coloured visual. I wanted the statue to remain the same colours as the real life one with the yellow shirt and using a dark blue and faded green background I wanted a lighter left top corner to replicate a spotlight. I associate jazz with dark warm colours so that was the aim to create a chill cosy type vibe with come brighter colours, I think the red is a great way to break up the image and is a lot more intense than the others. I liked the composition of this visual the best because things fit well and there was plenty of space and shapes to accommodate the text.

My final poster...

 I stuck to one type of text throughout (Bondoni 72) and because this was drawn digitally it was easy to manipulate the typeface into different shapes and sizes. Jazz as its the main theme I made the biggest word and changed up the colours also playing on the theme of instrument specifically guitar on the first Z. Just to make the title stand out I added a small shadow in the colour black to compliment the rest of the black text. I stook to the same type of background with a fade however I used darker tones and more browns than blues or greens. Because the background is dark it meant the other colours were more visible as well as the white text. The text is clear, and I think that important for a person interested to be able to clearly see and understand. I did play around with the fonts before adding the colour but the one I chose seemed to fit the theme better as a lot of the posters for jazz nights I researched had a sort of more sophisticated vintage type text.

My process was to just place everything the same way they were in my visuals and take it from there. The first layer with the outlines is just in grey and then a second black line layer is added so I could test a few fonts after a main deign is established....

These are just the template before the colour and details are added.

 

I had a vision of the text in my head and the places I was going to put it, but it took a while finding the right shape of font and how it behaved when manipulated. The top picture's text was a bit to square and modern for what I wanted and the second picture the letters felt to chunky and pixelated when I began moulding it into shape. Not a lot of typefaces stood out to me until finding Bondoni 72, it just looked the smoothest and the letters had just enough width to be bold.

I wanted to complete this poster simply because I wanted to see the final product all together, I made small changes to the colour of the background because the statue was black, I had to make the background light enough so the silhouette could be seen and there was clear depth rather than a flat image. Example...

 

Furthermore, I wanted this poster to reflect my cartoony style with the tones and shadows on things but keeping it calm to fit the jazz style, so it was kept to a minimum. I guess the random water drop shapes and odd little lines and dots everywhere were just to make it a bit more modern and fresher as well as the ones coming out of the saxophones mouth, everything seems to complement each other, and nothing is so intense that It removes the focus from the message and information. The words, names, and places I decided to use were a play on the theme to make it fun. Names like "Mike check" in relation to someone checking the mic is working or "Hi-tops" because this part of a drum kit is used in Jazz. I think it brings a bit of personality to the poster, it still contains all the necessary information like where, when and entry price. On many of the posters on my mood boards seemed to have social media pages so I added a little link at the bottom. This poster I feel I have successfully made unique, the subtle details like the circular lights around the title like they would a sign and the saxophone having teeth and vomiting the information for the event. I believe my poster would capture the eye of the younger audience as it’s a bit modern but still has that vintage element. Video Below