New York, New York

—deep breath—

Alright. The semester is over and summer is here. I am going to be home for a month, however, I will be returning to CCS for summer classes. Yes.

I'll slowly be adding some of the work I've been doing now that I have the time. CCS staff and students were not kidding about finals week. People DO turn into zombies, they will miss meals, a few kids will end up in the hospital because they have exhausted themselves to death. I missed a few meals (oops. I didn't have time, they were telling the truth!) and pulled a couple all-nighters in the process. But now classes are over and I've had time to kick back for the night. Feels great!

Anyway, here's a Typography assignment from awhile ago. We had 2 weeks for these posters, week one was a more rough draft with critique, second week was a final mounted poster for class. For the 11th assignment we had to create a poster about a song—visually communicating the song and it's essence.

After browsing through many songs I ended up in my jazz play lists (since it is my favorite genre) and found good ol'Frank Sinatra. Classic. I knew what I was going to do, "New York, New York". I chose the song based on a few things. 1: It's Frank. 2: The song is jazzy and has a Broadway feel to it (another favorite genre).

Here are my first results. I browsed through some websites (AIGA) and a few books hoping to get some inspiration. In TDC Annual 2008 I found a poster by Magma Brand Design. It was a design for one of their magazines. I couldn't find a decent fold out picture of the cover design online (unlike the laid out version in the book), but I enjoyed how the rag of modulated text boxes looked like a skyline. I thought maybe I could try that in my poster.



After some playing around I ended up with a different result. Instead of having the negative space form the skyline, I used the modules to create the skyline.

Here are some designs I messed around with. Didn't like any of them very much to continue editing them (some things for the assignment are missing)... but here we go.





One of my friends had mentioned how when he thinks of Frank, he gets a feeling of Art Deco. Even though that period ended right about when Frank was coming to fame, I did see a similar feeling between the two. I thought I would run with that. Here are some spin offs... none of which I really liked either, but by the end of the night I had to present something in class, even though I was not happy with my designs. Here are the two I had for a rough crit.




Rough, I know. Not sure why I chose the colors on the last one. The color sort of reminded me of a shirt one of my friends wore that was of a cityscape with the similar color them. Crit was as a figured, needed some work, but I was ready to just start all over.

Margo, my wonderful professor, had noticed my struggle with the poster and send me a message after class:

"Hi Jake,

I was just thinking about you and your song poster. Jake, could you be struggling with this one because you have not really worked out what you want to say about Frank and the song New York? In some way I think you might think your job is to interpret what the song means.

Instead, show us how the song makes you feel. Why did you pick that song? Why are you drawn to it? Is it Frank or the city? If it's not the city, do you have to show it? If it is the city are you really communicating the expanse or excitement with a silhouette?

Lastly, remember the Paula Scher work we saw today--the way Paula styled and arranged the type and images on her noise/funk posters provides a frenetic feeling of fast music, movement and dancing. http://www.hillmancurtis.com/index.php?/film/watch/paula_scher/

Contact me if I can help.

Margo"

This in turn completely changed my thinking around about how I should do my poster—it made sense. After some drafting and some sketching I went to work. Here are the results of my final song poster:


Here's a look into some of my thinking. I chose the old microphone because I felt it emulated best what Frank was about: pure classic talent. If you look closely the lyrics of the song are within the microphone and run seamlessly into the title of the song, "New York, New York". The pattern design originated from the idea that I would duplicate the skyline of New York in a pattern. This way I could bring some of the city into the poster, the business. I messed with a few pattern designs before I came to rest on the final one. I chose this one based on the rhythm in the song. If you listen to the song the lengths of the notes go: "short, short, long, short—short, short, long, short", which, I brought into my pattern. If you look closely you'll see what I mean. I chose black and gray as a color as they represent buildings the best... as most city are very gray in color. I put in random yellow skylines to add a splash of color—and what better color to pick then the New York taxi?

The final thing I struggled with was his name. Initially I wanted to map out his name in the streets of Manhattan. However, that failed and ended up looking like a little kid drawing unfortunately. So instead, I used the typeface Gotham and put it amongst the skyline (as if they are buildings themselves, rising above the NY skyline).

To me, the song celebrates one of the most inspirational cities on the globe. A celebration of New York and it's culture—a city the world looks to for the latest, and greatest. It's busy, classy, epic, and in your face—all things I tried to incorporate into my poster design. Any feedback? Let me know what you think!