Musical Poster

[cappital92]

Now every year, my high school, like many, has a musical. However the posters for my school's, unlike the talent, SUCKS.

So, I was bored this weekend, and decided to make a poster for it. This year it's Little Women. (They made that into a musical?)

I feel I'm off to a good start, but it needs something to make look like you'd see it by a Broadway theater, not by science class.

C+C, by all means.

[BanditQb4]

So I think you have some solid elements there, the biggest critique I would provide is that they appear to be just that... disjointed elements. A quick search of broadway posters led me to this site.

Take a look at the fairly common composition and artistic style a lot of broadway posters use and evolve your concept into something along those lines.

[AndrewPF]

I think it's pretty solid. Ask AveryJ about it, I believe he's done this type of stuff before.

[DelayedPenalty]

You need to work on the heirarchy of the type at the bottom. All of the copy is the same size and elements run together. Date would be most important, location second most, price last. I like the use of the bonnet, however I think it needs to be worked into the text to make it more of a logotype, not type with clip art.

[goalieboy82]

use to live right near there (maybe a mile from there).

[cappital92]

use to live right near there (maybe a mile from there).

Yeah, in fact, I think a few hockey players here practice at where the Kangaroos play (Reston SkateQuest).

BTW, DP, I have an idea of the L wearing the bonnet. Think it will work?

[slapshot]

I would make the bonnet the emphasis of the poster. Shrink down most of the rest of the text. Condense a lot of it to one line instead of two.

You could have it set up like this...

"The Oakton High..."

really big bonnet

Little Women

the musical (smaller text)

then reduce the size of the reverse banner at the bottom and center the text, reducing it to 2 lines instead of 3 or 4.

If this is a poster, you can still reduce the size of the text while making it legible.

[DelayedPenalty]

use to live right near there (maybe a mile from there).

Yeah, in fact, I think a few hockey players here practice at where the Kangaroos play (Reston SkateQuest).

BTW, DP, I have an idea of the L wearing the bonnet. Think it will work?

I envisioned a large script L wearing the bonnet, and then the rest of the text smaller. "Women offset slightly with a slightly larger W.

[cappital92]

I followed up on slapshot's ideas. DP, I'm working on the "Bonnet L" now, once I have a good script with it going, I'm replacing the bonnet and current script with it.

[oddball]

That type is killing you. Find a nice family of fonts that has black, italic, wide, thin, etc. I'd also try an illustration of a bonnet from the front view and center it. You also might try looking up Civil War poster and doing it in that style of design. It's called Victorian Broadsheet. It's a layered style of thick than thin, but you could also use various types of fonts and give it a feeling of the 1800's. Here's a link I found that has a bunch of the posters. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pantufla/sets...57594086936037/

[averyj]

I have arrived.

Seeing as I've done 5 posters so far (viewable here), hopefully I will be of assistance.

I think the first thing you want to do, is move into vector. I know you're the self-titled "Master of Raster", but for theater posters raster-based graphics won't cut it. Bar-none, the best free vector program I've used is Inkscape.

Now on to the actual design.

Italics will get you nowhere. They just make something look stylized and romantic. Seeing as this is theater, it's gonna make it look boring. Plus it makes the centering of everything else look weird. I'd go with the suggestion that oddball made above.

This needs visual hierarchy. When I say that, I mean that it needs order. The first thing a person should see is the title of the play. I'd put it at the top, underneath the "Oakton High School presents..." text

Speaking of which, this text should be changed to "Oakton High School Presents:". The ellipsis makes it look gimmicky.

I'm not sure on the capitalization of "Presents" though, I'm sure a grammarian could show the way.

If you do make the bonnet into an L, you're going to be faced with the problem of lack of center. By this I mean that there will be no central graphic. This is a tough one, seeing as there is no real overarching plot element that could be used as a graphic, to the best of my knowledge.

In this case, I'd go for silhouettes, or something symbolic and metaphorical. I have no idea what, though. That's up to you. Maybe a puritan spanking paddle.

I'd also go with just "Bromly Auditorium" if that's possible.

That's all for right now. If you do go through with these updates, I'd be able to further assist. It's visualization element, before I can go any further, I need to see it.

This has potential, I'm excited to see where it goes from here.

[cappital92]

Thanks for the advice everyone, but the drama department decided to go in-house with their posters. I'm fearing something with markers and Brush Script.

[DelayedPenalty]

Thanks for the advice everyone, but the drama department decided to go in-house with their posters. I'm fearing something with markers and Brush Script.

Oh god...Stick to acting, drama geeks!

[goalieboy82]

would like to see, Death of a Salesman the Musical

[cappital92]

Thanks for the advice everyone, but the drama department decided to go in-house with their posters. I'm fearing something with markers and Brush Script.

Oh god...Stick to acting, drama geeks!

Well, it's not too bad. I mean, the poster they had for "The Wizard of Oz" two years ago was top-notch, and they're always a step or font change away from a good poster. Unfortunately, the drama department isn't a member of this board.

P.S. I've offered my services in uniform and ballpark design should they ever do "Damn Yankees". And when I say offer, I mean, "crowned myself head of set and costume design."

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Thanks for the advice everyone, but the drama department decided to go in-house with their posters. I'm fearing something with markers and Brush Script.

Oh god...Stick to acting, drama geeks!

Yeah, geeks! Everyone knows that cool people like hockey teams with buffalo on the jerseys! That's what the cool guys do!

[andrewharrington]

Use a photo. Create a script 'Little Women' in the center top. List the credits at the bottom in a tidy sans serif. Done. The best posters tell the simplest stories.

[Gothamite]

The best posters tell the simplest stories.

And when well done, the simplest posters tell the best ones.