Gig poster – Livid Gammons
I did a set of gig posters, each based on a phone doodle. Then I did a version of each without the doodle with more emphasis on the type. Both versions shown above.
How did I get to version 2?
- Ignored everything.
Ok, I chucked the first poster in the bin and went ‘off brief’. The only tenuous link I can suggest is that the doodle in the first poster and the text in the second are a bit scribbly. Sorry.
I wasn’t feeling any inspiration from the first poster and I wanted to to do something different to the other posters in the series.1 Livid Gammons are a ragged, angry group (apparently) and I wanted something to express that. I was also thinking about working quickly and not getting involved in detail.
Show me the money
One conflict that sometimes occurs between designers and clients is about where the money goes.
The designer thinks they’re being paid for their brilliant idea even though the expression of that idea might turn out to be quite simple.2 The client thinks they’re having to pay for something that looks as if it was done too easily and don’t recognise the work gone into making it appear that way. They want to see the money ‘on the page’. The designer is seen as a decorator.
“My [insert age of child] year old could have done it!”
A common (hyperbolic) criticism of simple designs is ‘my four year old could have done that!’ I can easily imagine someone saying it about poster two. But it’s a good poster. It will stand out against other posters it is displayed with and it expresses the nature of the headline group forcefully and accurately. I like it.
- Although I had done handwritten text for this, at the time it wasn’t the entire poster.
- Often the idea is brilliant because it can be expressed simply.