On April 20, 2014, keen to start designing the poster for The Lounge with the show date less than a month away, I messaged the entire group attatching a document with all of the varying poster designs I've annotated for my portfolio without any notes so they can simply tell me the page numbers of their favourite designs in the very least (as there is one poster per page) and also lend any other feedback or comments about the posters.
This would give me a starting point from which to design our poster with elements from the most popular posters within the group. However, it was - as expected - annoyingly difficult to get the group to complete the simplest of tasks and I had to ask numerous times, the last time being the 22 April, 2014.
Here are the responses I did get (3 of the 8 other people in the group):
On 27 April, 2014 I designed The Lounge poster using Corel Paint Shop Pro. I started with the concept of a sofa being central - as shown in the first of my research examples in my portfolio.
This is the sofa I initially began removing the background from as its original background did not exude the coolness that I wanted for our poster. Also, the clear daylight through the window would look out of place on a poster for an evening event and the original image itself was not long enough to fill an A4 sheet of paper - which is the size we'll be printing on.
So I went in search of another image and settled on this:
The image's white background was easy to remove despite the reflection and shadow effects, plus I felt the dark, brown leather exuded the class and coolness that I was after.
I then found a high resolution image of a textured grey background with rich wood flooring, which I added the background-free sofa too and then the text to create the first draft of the poster (click to enlarge):
Though the title of the event is very clear along with the date, time and venue, after sharing the draft in the group Facebook message, we soon realised that I had forgotten to add the ticket price or any info on them at all; which may have led many to believe the event was free, which would have been disastrous if we had an audience that turned up not expecting to pay anything.
I swiftly added ticket info and also made a few cosmetic changes which I think made a great difference and finished the design.
The final poster design for The Lounge (click to enlarge):
While I am very proud of the final design, I do wish I had started the process of getting group feedback sooner so that I could have completed the design sooner and thus leave more time to use it to promote the event.
I was really pleased and flattered by the feedback I received from prospective audience members who were enticed to seek further info on the show after seeing me post the poster on Facebook.
Here is some of that feedback:
The
positive response to the poster was confirmation for me that the design
is a successful one, putting me one step closer to effectively
fulfilling my role as the Graphic Designer of the group. Though I shared
the poster design on social media, I plan on printing the posters in
the next few days at my parent's house as my printer is not set up.
They also have a laminator which I'll use to protect the posters from
being damaged and becoming illegible.
28 April, 2014: "Givin' Em What They Love"
I arrived at 14:00 to find Kian and Crystal waiting, Serena arrived 11 minutes later and Elica soon after that. Stefan arrived around 15:00 and after discussing the general progress of rehearsals and planning of the show - which I feel is much slower than it should be due to poor attendance, motivation and focus from a few group members - we began focusing on solos.
Me and Kian began rehearsing Janelle Monae's "Givin' Em What They Love", which she performs with Prince - Kian's all-time favourite performer.
Janelle Monáe (feat. Prince) "Givin' Em What They Love" (from The Electric Lady)
I sang Janelle's verse and the first chorus an octave lower than she does on the original studio recording. Kian harmonises above me on the first chorus and then sing's Prince's verse in the same octave before dropping down an octave. I then come in with the second chorus but singing in the same octave Janelle does on the studio recording and Kian harmonises below me. We thought we'd arrange the song this way to build up interest and tension rather than start full out and have to maintain that level of audience interest throughout the performance.
We did not get onto the bridge but the song is a personal favourite of mine and Kian so I have full faith that we'll both rehearse the song independently so that when we rehearse it next we can cover all of it and begin working on the performance aspects of our performance as the show date is drawing ever closer and we need to speed up rehearsal progress.
Also, I need to rehearse singing in Janelle's octave as though I am fully capable of singing the notes, the fear of failing is preventing me from going for it in rehearsals and if I can't belt fearlessly in rehearsals then how will I do so in a live show?
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