Assignment Three: Poster

Brief

To design an illustration for a poster for a music event. An Early Music concert, a Jazz evening or for a pop group. You can choose.
The finished poster will be reproduced at A3 size, but you can work at the size, in proportion, that you feel most comfortable with. You will need to provide your working drawings – the thumbnails and visuals – with the finished piece.
The poster will include the title of the event, the date, time, place and any other information you think appropriate. You can either include this on your artwork or indicate where it will be positioned.
What to do
Start by brainstorming and create a moodboard. Produce a range of alternative thumbnails in which you consider viewpoints and various arrangements of the content you have selected.
Choose the two compositions you like best and create two line visuals. Don’t get bogged down by detail that doesn’t help you to describe the main structure and content of the image. If you are including type are you confident that you have chosen the right typeface? If you are not including it indicate where it will go. Check that when added it will neither get lost or obliterate or compromise your composition.
Take the composition you think works best and create a colour visual. Use your mood board to help you to establish a colour range to work within. Be selective.
Finally, produce your final artwork.

Keywords:

• A3 size music poster
• Provide your working drawings – the thumbnails and visuals
• Include the title of the event, the date, time, place and any other information
• Start by brainstorming and create a moodboard
• Range of alternative thumbnails
• Consider viewpoints
• Create two line visuals
• Create a colour visual
• Use your mood board to help you to establish a colour range
• Produce your final artwork

Research; The History of Jazz concert

From Spirituals to Swing was the title of a concert at Carnegie Hall on 23 December 1938, marking the first time jazz had made a formal recognition of its own history. The concert, intended to present music of African-American origin to a mixed audience, was the brainchild of John Hammond, a scion of the Vanderbilt dynasty who had fallen in love with jazz during his youth. He worked as a jazz critic before beginning a distinguished career as an A&R man, and was also active in the civil rights movement.

The concert, and a second instalment held on Christmas Eve the following year, were representative of his inclusive taste, featuring the country blues performers Big Bill Broonzy and Sonny Terry, the “blues shouter” Big Joe Turner, the gospel singing of the Golden Gate Quartet and the boogie woogie pianists Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons alongside the bands of Count Basie and Benny Goodman and many others. Having had his requests for sponsorship turned down by many bodies, Hammond eventually secured backing from New Masses, a periodical produced by the American Communist party. The concerts would be seen as a milestone in the presentation and appreciation of jazz.

Mind map

My chosen subject for my poster is Jazz evening. I mind mapped everything that I thought can be related to this subject.

Mood board

Then I gathered some pictures of the actual Jazz concerts and the posters of Jazz concerts.

Thumbnails

I made my thumbnails inspired by the information I gathered about the Jazz music and my mood boards. I decided to include a Jazz player, and some Jazz instruments. I quite liked the pattern that made of music notes, so I’m going to add it to one of my designs.

Line visuals

Design process

I made my initial designs in Procreate then transferred them to Photoshop for adding the typeface. I wanted a minimal, bold and bright colour palette. So decided to stick to red, black and white. For the typeface, I thought sans serif and handwritten typefaces are more adequate.

Final designs

Self – reflection

A challenging assignment, as I didn’t have any information about the Jazz music. However the whole process of gathering information and making the designs was very interesting.

For this poster project, I went through several stages of ideation and testing; research about the history of the Jazz concert, mind mapping, mood boards, thumbnails, and sketches, I designed my posters using a digital medium.

I imagine if the design was for a real client, I needed to gather more real photos and not just relied on the existing images.

If I wanted to do this assignment again, I would like to use different media for one of the posters.

Sources

• Google images. Jazz music. At: www.https://images.google.com. (Accessed: 10/11/23)
• The Guardian. Jazz gets a history. At: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jun/17/jazz-gets-a-history. (Accessed: 10/11/23)