90s Type Design Project
Objective:
You will be designing a promotional poster and CD Jewel case cover. You will need to demonstrate an understanding of the 90's type and layout design. You will need to display mastery of Photoshop. It will be important for you to explore principles of design including hierarchy, white space, alignment, contrast, proximity, scale, and repetition. Most importantly, you will learn to have total disregard for anything you've learned about type of to this point in your design education!
First, I started by choosing my initial idea, no sketching whatsoever, I just began with a blank photoshop page. I decided to mix it up for the poster and do a Red Hot Chili Peppers tour with Pearl Jam and Nirvana as guests. The tour was called the Blood Sugar Sex Magik Tour. This specific concert was at the Cow Palace in San Fransisco. I realized that this legendary event would be perfect for the poster as it took place in 1991. I began to design my idea immediately.
Unfortunately, while making this Behance post, I realized that I forgot to write "Sugar" In the tour name...
I wanted to bring out the grunge a bit more as both Nirvana and Pearl jam are grunge groups. I then began working on the background which consisted of the RHCP logo. I additionally added the date of when the concert took place. Originally I wanted to have a totem pole in the center with all the different members of the bands, but I could not get it to look good.
I was very content with the overall look so far so I proceeded to add the groups that were taking place in the event, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. I added some inverted and white areas to contrast the look of the background.
So far I felt that it was looking really good, but needed a little more chaos, so I added another large inverted area.
By this point I was a little unsure about the color choices, but I decided to add more details and see where it was going. I added the different groups in which really tied the entire poster together.
I was very happy with the overall design, but the colors still felt a little off to me, so I added a filter that would adjust the colors a bit.
Before After
Then I finally applied one more filter to distort the image a bit more, which really made the poster feel complete.
After I was happy with the poster, I moved onto the CD Cover. I decided to do the album of Californication because I liked the feel a bit more, that is really the best explanation I can give. I started off with a blank page as I did before.
I designed a little badge that used some of the colors from the original album. I then began work on the background. I took the silhouette of the members of RHCP and then took some of the textures from the original Californication album cover.
I then added text to the background as well as a picture of the members at the bottom where I tried to replicate the design of the poster.
I then combined the badge and the background together.
I was Happy with this however it did not match the poster AT ALL and so i had to introduce a bit more chaos to the design and change the colors up a bit. It worked perfectly.
At last, The CD cover and the Poster were complete! Though there were some errors along the way, but I am very happy with the finished products. I hung the poster up however, I unfortunately forgot to take a picture of it.
I hope you enjoyed this journey just as much as I did!
