Poster Perfect: Working with Designer who Listens

When Dawn Bloxham sent the first draft of the poster, I was impressed.

She focused on my requests, and she did not let 24 hours pass before addressing any questions or comments from me.

My response to her was the following--

What I Love:

• The font and positioning is perfect for "Family Famine: Hunger for Love". I think you purposely lined up the "F" "U" "L" in a vertical way, which has a fun meaning for those who are observant.
• The title, in and of itself, is a work of art.
• The hands with the bowl of soup/heart really does work!
• The red, white, and blue colors reflect Americana and traditional family values.
• Your sense of balance and the power of threes in your artwork. For example, you are smart that the hands make a triangle shape pointing to the information. You are also conscientious of having some red on top, red in the middle, and red in the soup.
• You understand the "less is more" concept.
• Dark brown works as an outline color rather than a black.
• Lining up of all the wording in a pleasing manner.

Things to Explore/Play:

• Let's have bolder and richer colors of the red, white, and blue colors. What would happen if we had the same/similar bright blue as on my business card for the background? Blood-red or similar shade of red as on my business card? At the same time, I like how the skin color of the hand blends into the background--very artistic. Yet, the color is muted and not engaging enough to make someone stop while walking past the poster. The trick is what to do about the font color with such a background? Please save the original version as well as this "play with color" one.
• Let's have "action" to the image by having big swirls of steam from the soup. Perhaps reflect the style as the heart in the soup.
• Could my picture be enlarged without distracting from the title or bowl? I know white space is important.
• Could the hands have a texture to look more 2D or 3D rather than flat?
• Add possible contrast to the hands and bowl. For example, the tree on my business card has the white with the dark brown so it has almost a "shock" value. Same with the white pixie against the dark background. This may make the hands, in particular, less flat-looking.

Wording/Item to Change:

• A couple people did not know what I meant by "recorded live" in connection with "World premiere narrative production recorded live". Do you think it will be more clear if it was "World premiere narrative production to be recorded live"?
• The white font of "Monday, February 9th at 8:00pm" is hard to read against the tan background.

When Dawn changed the background color for the poster, darkened the blues and reds, and added the steam from the bowl of soup with the heart in it, I knew we had it. The contrast or the request to make the hands look more 2D or 3D became unnecessary.

Yet, not to be hasty, I again sent this file to my story buddies. They had helped catch things in the past that I would not have seen until it was too late.

After feedback from my story buddies, I knew that the poster was finalized.

Dawn certainly has artistic flair and listens to me at the same time.
Until we tell again,

Rachel Hedman

Professional Storyteller

Former Co-Chair of Youth, Educators, and Storytellers Alliance (2005-2008)

Tel: (801) 870-5799
Email: info@rachelhedman.com

URL: http://www.rachelhedman.com

How-To Blog: http://storytellingadventures.blogspot.com

Performance Blog: http://familyfamine.blogspot.com
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