FEATURED PROJECT
THE BRIEF...
The brief was to create a logo, poster and leaflets for the theatre performance of Ghosts. I was told that the show would be based on A Christmas Carol by Chales Dickens and that it revolved around a female star ('scrooge') trapped in a room being haunted by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future.
The client wanted a dark "ghoulish" illustration style and so I started off with a quick sketch.
THE FIRST DRAFT...
The idea here was to have the bottom third of the poster in grayscale, depicting the loneliness and isolation of the protagonist being haunted. This grayscale would then blend into dark colours and tones in the middle third of the poster where the ghosts would be illustrated in dark tones and shadows looming over the woman. This would then blend into the top third of the poster, behind the ghosts, showing a window to the outside world where we can see it is Christmas through some medium (either a tree and snow or the star of bethlehem for a more subtle look). This top third of the poster would be in lighter, pastel colours.
The black pen additions were an early attempt to distinguish the ghosts from one another (chains for the ghost of Christmas past, a flaming torch for Christmas present and a sythe for the ghost of Christmas future).
The first poster design more or less followed this style. I created the ghosts by scanning in two girls who had photocopied their faces, eventually erasing their hands, and one other royalty free photo of a guy screaming. I made their skin pale with a bluish tint and added scratches to their faces.
The 'Ghosts' title was created to look like it was scratched into the wall behind them. This was then lightened to make it more readable, and less like it had been scratched into the wall, this felt like a shame but of course readability is key... The star of bethlehem was used through the window to depict a Christmas scene in a much more subtle way than a tree and snow.
THE REDESIGN...
This poster idea was eventually scrapped once it went to the committee so I focused on a much simpler idea, the face of the haunted protagonist shadowed in darkness. The title font to be done in a more gothic style.
I drew a rough shadowed face shape and placed a 'scratchy' texture over it. I then cut out and added the hair from various royalty-free sources, finally adding an eye from another image.
I particularly liked the fact that different people viewed the spooky face as either the haunted protagonist or as one of the ghosts.
THE FINAL STAGE...
This was then printed as an A2 poster. I used the top half of this image (with the hair and eye) as the front of an A6 postcard with all details on the back, I used the full poster design again with no details and a white version of the title as 'teaser' stickers, and created a black version of the title to use as a letterhead logo for press releases.
