Overview
I was Head Publicity Designer for Scotch'n'Soda's 2016 production of Murder Ballad, a one-act rock musical centered on themes of love, jealousy, and betrayal. Together with my co-designer, Avi, I designed 8.5x11" teaser posters, 11x17" main posters, t-shirts, programs, tickets, and social media content, including Scotch'n'Soda's first ever Snapchat Geofilter.
Process
Designing for Murder Ballad was a highly collaborative effort. In addition to working with my co-designer, I also worked closely with the directors of the show to create a visual brand that united all the creative visions involved in the production.
To generate visuals, I conducted a photoshoot with the cast members and manipulated the photos using Photoshop and Sketch. All of our assets were formatted through Sketch except for tickets, which I created in InDesign.
Vision
The existing branding for Murder Ballad (right) played with pixelated text in order to convey a sense of modernity. However, we quickly had to scrap this existing theme for both contractual and creative reasons; contractually, we were obliged to create our own branding. Creatively, we knew that in the context of CMU, pixelated text might encourage assumptions that the musical was about technology or computer science, which wasn't the case.
We decided to instead focus on the human body using high contrast, black and white photos of limbs and hands. The focus on the human body was in part derived from the directors' vision, which included a shadow cast of dancers that conveyed the main casts' emotions through modern choreography.