Step 1. Read the Client’s Instructions

I’m always surprised when working with outsourced freelance designers when they don’t pay attention to the instructions that were sent along with the project. As a designer myself this is always the first step in any process. If the client has specific rules they want followed, you had better have a valid reason to stray from their path.

Ryan,

Here is the info for next semesters posters. We are adding tickets to the printing quote so we will need designs for the poster, postcard, program and tickets this semester. I will have to get the ticket specs for you. I attached an image that Angie came up with and that is pretty much what she wants it to look like.

Please include the following:

SCC Dance Presents

Title: My Body, My Mind

Catchy phrase: Every movement, born first from thought, explodes from the muscle spindle fibers and is crafted into a luxurious expression of the body

Choreographers: Chad Michael Hall, Tamara Dyke (may need to add more later)

Statement: SCC and the Maricopa Community Colleges are EEO/AA institutions.

Phone: 480.423.6600
Website: www.scottsdalecc.edu/dance

Prices: $10 General Admission, $5 Students/Seniors

Date:  April 30th and May 1st 2010
TIme: 8:00pm

Location: Scottsdale Community College PE Building – North Gym

Companies: Instinct Dancecorps, SCC Moving Company and S.A.J.E

Logos: SCC, MCLI, Maricopa Community Colleges (attached)

Tickets usually include:
We need a separate design for Friday and Saturday

Stub:
- SCC presents
- Title
- date and time
- $5, $10, COMP (we circle when we sell them so we know what type of ticket we sold)

Ticket body:
- main image from poster
- Title
- date and time
- catchy phrase
- SCC address
- Box office: 480.423.6600

There will be numbers on the top and bottom of the ticket. I will ask for specs from the printer. I attached an example of the ticket I made for the last show.

Preffered pics
- Image ID: 3388690 – shutterstock http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-3388690/stock-photo-communicating-neurones.html
- File #: 10012635 – istockphoto http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-10012635-the-dancer-on-water.php

Other pics if they are better
- Image ID: 8608681- shutterstock http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-8608681/stock-photo-neurones.html
- Image ID: 16941598 – shutterstock http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=16941598
- Image ID: 13472581 – shutterstock http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-13472581/stock-photo-ballerina-in-red-dress.html

Step 2. What Will it Look Like?

A lot of the time this involves me looking around online for different sources of inspiration. I like browsing through the AIGA archives, but unfortunately they haven’t been working right the last month. Images refuse to load no matter what OS or browser I try them on. Another good place to look is at smashingmagazine’s inspirational category.

Fortunately for this project the client told me exactly what she wanted. She even made a quick image herself and sent it to me.

Now comes all the fun work. Time to build the design so it looks like what the client wants. My final designs rarely look exactly like what the client asks for, as there are lots of little changes I’ll make as I work through the project and watch it evolve. The overall feel and idea must always remain intact however.

In this project the client wants the neruons to show communication and have the dancer spring from that communication. This show has a tech heavy theme, as parts of the show and music were built from the dancers’ personal brain maps provided by Brain State Technologies.

Lots and lots of time spent masking things correctly with the pen tool. Good thing I love this, cuz it takes forever to do it right.

After all the pen tool action it’s time to mask the black BG away.

As you can see the glow has been masked away, oh no what do we do!

This is a pretty easy fix. I need the ‘glow’ effect to be transparent, otherwise it would be a black haze and would look wrong. To get the glow back you just use a technique that was popular before photoshop had layer effects and filters. Duplicate the layer and apply a gaussian blur :)

Now let’s add the stock background to the image.

It’s pretty obvious that isn’t working, which is why the background image will need to go through some changes. First we will desaturate the image, and pull all the color out. I’ll also darken it up a bit, it is much too bright.

Better but it now needs some color. The neurons in the foreground are going to dictate how I color the background. I’m pretending the front neurons are the brightest, so the blue and red glows need to reflect off the back images correctly. This will be done by me coloring the background by hand with reds and blues. I do this by creating a blue and red layer and setting them to ‘color dodge’. I then mask out sections to get the right colors in the right places.

Here is the result I’m left with after the ‘painting’.

I’m not quite happy with the glow still, so next I duplicate the glow image a couple of times and set the overlays to Hardlight, Exclusion, and Linear Dodge (Add). I then draw a center glow and add some circles to simulate a lens flare. I added some white SPACE like lines in there too. You know when a spaceship enters HYPERSPEED and the stars blur? I was kinda trying to add a bit of that effect in there.

The background colors need to be altered a bit to include some more red.

Much better. Now I need to add the dancer into the image. She doesn’t look right just dropped in (after masking out the background with the pen tool of course), so I’ll need to figure out a creative way to get her into the image.

The dancer is now integrated better into the ‘brain’. I’ve changed the lighting on her skin as well as placed neurons in front and behind her. I also used the liquify filter to make the leg look like a neuron ending.

I’m still not happy with the lighting and it seems a bit too busy still. I’m going to move the dancer’s left arm and fabric in front of the neuron. I’m also going to work more on her skin color and the lighting overall. The background needs to be blurred a little more and made a bit darker as well.

Next is adding text and logos, so it’s time to pick a font. The font I’m going to use is Walkway by GemFonts.

Adding the type begins:

There is so much type for this poster, it really can be tricky to get it all in without hiding the image. Still, one must march on until the end is reached. Behold the final version:

Click here to see the large image.

1 Comment »

Leave a comment

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website