One of the fun parts about being a designer in a band (and probably the reason that so many designers are also musicians) is getting the chance to design all the schwag that goes along with the music: album covers, websites, t-shirts, and of course, gig posters. Designers love doing music-related projects, as other creatives tend to give designers more creative freedom than the average client. Often, particularly with gig posters, we’re freed from the usual constraints of having to clearly communicate a set of information (I’m fairly confident that no one in this day and age actually finds out about a gig by way of a poster) in favor of producing a work with an emotional impact, one that tells the story of a band’s sound in a single image (check out this great collection for some examples, and this post and its comments for some criticism of this paradigm).
Next week, the Lost Cartographers and I will be playing at Chicago’s legendary Empty Bottle for the second time; we’ll be opening for the incredible Samanatha Crain & The Midnight Shivers (check out this preview of the show). The Bottle’s promo folks asked us to provide some posters, and while we don’t normally make posters (the return on investment is just too low in terms of getting people to come to the show), I decided it might be fun to do one for what promises to be such a great show.
I’d be interested to hear in the comments what you think about the poster — does it capture our sound, and tell the story of our music (which you can hear here if you haven’t already)?
