EVENT Selene Luna's Comedy Liberation
CLIENT Selene Luna
YEAR 2020
MISSION
With the title including the word "Liberation", the client wanted the artwork for her virtual comedy show to be vibrant, empowering, and sexy. Selene also made a point to include her image on the poster. As a comedian with a disability she takes great pride in who she is and wished for the artwork to do the same.
PROCESS
In talking with Selene, I quickly discovered her love of 1960s pop culture and glamour. I then came across a series of photos on her website which featured her dancing in all black. "Bingo!", I thought. Funny Face, a beloved cinema classic starring legendary actress and activist, Audrey Hepburn. Both women are vibrant, empowering, sexy, and 100% true to themselves. The concept was an instant approval. The final poster is influenced by the artwork designed to advertise the film in 1957.
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EVENT Cabaret
CLIENT Selma Arts Center
YEAR 2019
MISSION
The director expressed this production would venture into the stylized world of German Expressionism. The series of advertisements for this season of SAC (Selma Arts Center) shows were dark and black-lit so this one would fit right in. I wanted it to appear luxurious but reeking of an off-putting stench you couldn't quite place.
PROCESS
I decapitated this mannequin in Photoshop and added a bit of rouge and lipstick to make her up as a "Kit Kat Klub" dancer. Purple feathers and red coins swirl and fall around her signifying the glamour of Cabaret and the greed of power-hungry people. Glowing swastikas dance in her eyes, a grim sign of what awaits 1931 Berlin.
EVENT Rock of Ages (In Concert)
CLIENT The Fourth Wall Theatre
YEAR 2018
MISSION
This was a strictly limited engagement of a popular 1980's rock jukebox musical. The artwork needed to grab attention and sell tickets.
PROCESS
Inspiration came from vintage concert posters from the 1980s. Think Poison, Guns and Roses, or Journey. The kind of advertisements you'd see stapled on street posts or pinned to the walls of the local arcade or Sam Goody. Simple, exciting, textured to look as if it fell out of a box dad had tucked away in the attic back in his glory days. What a bitchin' night it was!
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EVENT The Hunchback of Notre Dame
CLIENT Selma Arts Center
YEAR 2017
MISSION
I kept seeing bells in just about every poster I came across for this show, and I wanted to take a different approach for this. I also didn’t want it to feel dated. This is a timeless tale of the underdog becoming a hero. It was important to me to reflect that rather than, “Paris, 1482”.
PROCESS
I was inspired by a lyric from the opening number: “what makes a monster and what makes a man?” Twisted gargoyles and angelic statues of saints were composited together to build the image of the human skull, echoing the lyric's question of humanity and morality. With death being such a prominent theme of the show the skull seemed fitting.
A keen eye will recognize many structural and decorative pieces from the Notre Dame cathedral.
I chose to merge many sets of letters together to create unconventional ligatures throughout the poster, a nod to deformity and otherness.
ACCOLADES
Adobe Design Achievement Awards (2018)
Semifinalist (Commercial - Print/Graphic/Illustration)
EVENT Carrie the Musical
CLIENT Selma Arts Center
YEAR 2017
MISSION
Carrie is one of the very few horror musicals out there and the artwork had to be alarming and disturbing, but still inviting. By now I was keen on using words to make pictures. I like how the style forces you to take in the entire image and then take apart its pieces while it secretly sends you a call to action. So, I knew I wanted a striking image to catch your attention. What better symbol for this story than a blood-soaked dress?
PROCESS
I hand-lettered everything in Photoshop then transferred it all into Illustrator for vectorizing to make clean, sharp lines for the text. After a couple of rounds of edits it still wasn't feeling quite right. The client suggested adding a paper texture behind the vector art, which gave me the idea of scribbling everything instead of leaving it pixel perfect. The result, a horrifying diary entry, maybe from Carrie's school notebook.
ACCOLADES
Communication Arts Design Competition (2018)
Finalist (Posters)
Adobe Design Achievement Awards (2018)
Semifinalist (Commercial - Print/Graphic/Illustration)
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EVENT Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play
CLIENT Selma Arts Center
YEAR 2016
MISSION
This play is inspired by The Simpsons but is its own very strange and absurdist monster. The client wanted the imagery to appear familiar but twisted, intriguing but off-putting. And above all, it needed to sell tickets to what was at the time a very risky endeavor for the theatre company.
PROCESS
Inspiration was drawn from The Simpsons television series and psychedelic concert posters. I knew from early on that I wanted a large hero image comprised entirely of dates and information. I almost immediately landed on the portrait of Homer Simpson seen here, his eye taking on the radioactive symbol and his trademark yellow skin glowing neon yellow. I paired with an accent "electric" blue - a cue from the title of the play. The resulting tone is jaunty, handmade, almost barbaric.
ACCOLADES
American Advertising Awards (2017)
National: Gold ADDY (Out-Of-Home - Poster S09A Single)
Regional: Gold ADDY (Out-Of-Home - Poster: S09A Single)
EVENT 12 Angry Men
CLIENT Selma Arts Center
YEAR 2015
MISSION
In the play, a jury of twelve men are put in a room to decide the fate of a teenage boy who has been charged with murdering his father with a knife. Because many tense arguments and a few physical squabbles unfold throughout the show, I knew the artwork needed to match its slow-burning intensity.
PROCESS
The style for this piece was kept minimal and was inspired by movie posters of the Hitchcock era, specifically by the legendary graphic designer Saul Bass.
The title makes up the image of a knife and sits on the left side to allow the production dates and other information jut out to the right. I chose a thin typeface for the top so that as your eye went down the poster there would be a visible, gradual change in weight. I felt the dramatic combination of red, white and black conveyed ideas of guilt, innocence and violence.
ACCOLADES
American Advertising Awards (2016)
National: Finalist
Regional: Gold ADDY (Out-Of-Home - Poster: S09A Single)
Local: Best in Show ADDY, Gold ADDY (Out-Of-Home - Poster: S09A Single)
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EVENT Into the Woods
CLIENT StageWorks Fresno
YEAR 2015
MISSION
The client wished for a an eye-catching visual that would set it apart from past posters created to advertise the musical. Into the Woods is a fractured fairy tale musical which includes many legendary characters from the Grimm's Brothers stories so it was important to convey a tone of whimsy and fantasy while maintaining an air of the macabre, all while presenting a visual that was fresh and original.
PROCESS
I used flour to create a sky and carved trees and a wolf into the negative space with a credit card on a dining room table - the wooden texture evoking trees in a forest. A few props and costume pieces were borrowed and placed in the layout to represent key items to be collected by the main characters in order to cast a magic spell late in the show. Overhead photography followed and copy was placed in Adobe Photoshop.