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.

{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.

Events
1. Friday, May 28: Portland ambient trio Eluvium at Big Car Gallery.

2. Friday, May 28: Fez Fest at the Melody Inn. The Dockers, Playboy Psychonauts and Vinyl Shriner. Yep get out your best fez, retro sunglasses and smoking jackets and ladies find a pair of go-go boots, vintage dress and sock it on over to the Mel.

3. Thursday, May 27: Grey Granite and Oreo Jones at the Blue Lounge-you can escape from the Indy 500/ hair band/so-co rock crowd by stepping into this electronic, trip hop oasis.

4. Friday, May 28: Have you been to a Polka Rave yet? Well here’s your chance-the Slovenian National Home starts the night out with traditional button box accordians and then Nathan Zarich DJ’s the heck out of some polka electronica.

Quick Links
1. Think twice about crowdsourcing-the pros and cons-frankly, I feel it has its place, but not in the design process.

2. Wanna conduct an acappella group or a blue whale singing? Now you can.

3. Tokyo Taxi Cab Tops

4. Place your vote-corporate Moulin Rouge logo vs. Licensed Logo

5. I’m ready to trade in my Saturn for a small “Ape” (pronounced “ah-peh”), I’d trick it out with spinning hubcaps and lowlights.