Events
1. Saturday, June 19: Radio Radio
The Leisure Kings and the Playboy Pshychonauts. Yes the Kings of Leisure are back and the Playboys will be coaxing you to imbibe more with their mighty sitar.

2. Saturday, June 19: IMA
100 Acres/ Virginia B. Fairbanks Park & Nature Reserve Opening Party
If you have $80 bones to spare, you can see Sharon Worden/My Brightest Diamond. It’s worth it.

Quick Links
1. History of Oil Spills- we have never learned.
2. If you need to find the name or a similiar pesky font, then try this site. I also recommend What the Font iPhone app.
3. Cushion Light-I wonder if it keeps you warm on cold winter nights.
4. AHHHHH the dreaded swoosh-the only other icon I despise more is the stretchy person/people in logos.
5. TED Oil Spill Poster Contest-Good Cause, Good Awareness, and a Good Poster.

{The Black and White Ball is an annual event for the Indianapolis Chapter of Kappa Alpha PSI}

For this invitation package, I was trying to channel one of my favorite designers of all time, Marian Bantjes into this little-tiny budget of a project. I wasn’t super happy at first to use the clip art of the dancers, but alas, as a designer sometimes you have to make compromises with the client. The dancers have been apart of every encantation of the event, so the client wanted them included.

Overall the campaign (invitation, envelope, postcard and event tickets) came together nicely.

Events

1. Wednesday, June 9: The GREAT READ-IN of Fountain Square: Bring a book, and a lawn chair then hang out on the sidewalk surrounding the Fountain Square Library at the instersection of Virginia and Prospect.

2. Saturday, June 12: Radio Radio is featuring the  The Vulgar Boatman

3.  Friday, June 11: The Indianapolis Museum of Art Summer Film Series will be showing  Rebel Without a Cause -bring a picnic dinner, a blanket to sit on and I guarantee an evening under the stars with images of James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo and Dennis Hopper will make it romantigal (yes I smash up my own descriptors/ romance + magical=romantigal).

4. Friday, June 11: If sitting outside watching James Dean Movies isn’t your thing-check out Big Car to see the premiere of the film, Kick.

Quick Links
1. I want to live in a keg apartment-I’ve been intrigued with reusing existing structures ever since I saw Mad Max when I was eight-I know a little dark but still those post-apocalyptic movies were onto something.

2.  I’ve been working on my contract and I came across this excellent post and while we are the topic this post.

3.  Personal bicycle shelter from the FUTURE but we could see it NOW.

4. Days of creating limited font web sites are over.

5. New Apple iPhone-it might be time for me to upgrade mine for this.

{I recently did a logo for a new non-profit, but unfortunately they decided to go a different direction with a another logo design. I still like this logo and the cause.}

If you get a chance to support A D.A.M.N. Good Cause, please do. Their first event is happening on July 24 at The Celebration Park Stage at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. There will be a motorcycle ride as well as an all ages event with music, food and a silent auction. All proceeds are going to raise money for the Betty Jordon Fund, Motorcycle driving safety and recovery/search canine groups of Indiana. It is a DAMN good cause.

{Chicago band The Detholz! are coming to Birdy’s on July 17 ••••••• Another must see is God Made Robots.}

Gig Posters are often a designers best creative outlet, because of two things:

1. Great Music

2. Less restrains on the normal content guidelines of a project/client

You can get more abstract if you want to (depending on the band) or follow a certain theme that will not only compliment the band/music style but attract the eye to your poster.

I couldn’t tell you the exact formula for creating the perfect poster, I’ll be honest, I’ve never created a poster that I was so in love with that I felt it was perfect. I’m kind of a pessimist in that way-there’s always something wrong that I want to fix or “do better.”

I believe creating a great poster design has a lot to do with finding an object, theme, story to pull from and building around it. The artwork should stand out bold but still allow the reader to figure out the name of the band and venue. There may be other info you need to include like ticket prices and sponsor/promoter logos, but if your design can incorporate the important information without distracting from the focus of the poster, you’ve figured it out.

A grid is always helpful too. If you get anxious thinking about a grid, just think of it as a blueprint that helps you figure out where info or art can go, and you can change it at anytime. You will also need to figure out if you want the flow of the design to be vertical or horizontal, broken in thirds, or simply scattered into a pattern-like distribution.

{Another version of The Detholz! poster that is a little weaker in organization-I plan on turning it into a wallpaper with more black space.}

There is a weight and clarity to poster art. If you shove too much information onto it without sketching or figuring out a grid or  some way to organize the text with the art-the poster will appear cluttered and the excitement or mystery it could of brought is lost.

Unless it’s a festival with several acts and events going on at the same time, putting everything including a google map into a poster design will be terribly hard to balance. You can be selective about how much info needs to be included. Anything that will overcrowd the poster or appear as overwhelming with info, can usually be fixed by directing people to a web site for more info or suggest a program/take away piece the day of the event with more info on it.