Concert Poster. Suggestions?

[wxwax]

I've agreed to to use some of my shots to make a free concert poster for a friend who's in a band. This will probably be 8.5 x 11 flyers. They'll be plastered over the club's walls in advance of the show.

I have rudimentary PS skills in this area. I figure mandatory content is the main guy's pic, the band's name, and the show info. Here's my first attempt. Anyone have any thoughts they'd like to share (besides "That sucks!" :flip)

http://wxwax.smugmug.com/photos/13554828-L.jpg

[Andy]

i think you're off to a good start, sid. i do have some comments:

* the shadows are all facacta - make them all consistent, unless you took this shot on a planet with four suns :D also the amount of shadow should be consistent, too.

* your paper curl is a cool idea - but at first i just thought something was wrong. i think it's too point, increas the angle leading up to the point, and keep the point about 3/4s to 1" away from the capital "b"

* the text lower right leaves me flat, relative to the rest of the doc. find a different font, do something to give it some depth or texture.

* the photo upper left is blue-tinted, and the others are not. i'd stay consistent one way or the other.

* the photo lower left seems oof. if you must use this one, then maybe try a lensbaby approach, maybe try (on a new layer) filter>blur>motion blur ....

well, that's it. hope this is helpful.

[ginger_55]

I will read Andy's short tutorial in a bit. Just want to comment on the main man.

He is looking better. Either that or you are getting better at portraying him, as he sure hasn't let his hair grow. But he looks more "cool", I am sure there is a new word for "cool".

Anyone have any suggestions on the correct word.

Good portrayal of your friend, Sid. What is his day job? Does he have to keep his hair like that. He could be a star in a 50s sitcom. But you done good with him.

How is his music? What does he sing? Type music?

ginger

Who cares re technicalities, well we do, but I can say the poster makes me want to hear the guy.

[DavidTO]

I think Andy's spot-on with his comments. I would add that the perspective on the shots is inconsistent, too. The drummer, lower left, is angled steeply away from camera, where the others are not.

Also, does the band have a logo? Might be a place to start, maybe not even for the first flyer, but something to develop over time, a consistent look to the way that their name is printed.

[wxwax]

Andy, thanks for the precise feedback, most helpful. You wouldn't believe how long it took my tiny mind to understand how to do the page curl thingie! :wxwax Back to the drawing board!

I'll see what I can do about the blurry bottom left photo - I was hoping that as a printout on plain paper that it wouldn't be too apparent. It's the best I have (drummers are hard to shoot in poorly lit clubs, they're distant and it's all too easy to get the drumkit in focus instead of the drummer - DAMHIK!)

Roger on the plain font on the bottom right - that was sort of by design, but prolly a bad idea. Easy to fix the drop shadows - just click on Global in the drop shadow dialogue box - the only one that's not consistent is the one on the font - the photos all have the same shadow.

David, thanks for picking on the two things that have been bugging me the most. I need to fix the perspective of the drummer, it's not consistent with the other two. But my biggest concern is the band name. They don't have a true logo. And I cannot replicate in PS the font that they use on their website. (http://www.derekclegggroup.com/default.php)

In fact, I find that PS comes with an extremely limited set of fonts, very frustrating and constraining. And a label in the drop-down menu apparently doesn't guarantee that the font is actually there - many come up blank or looking so crude as to be incorrect. So I'm feeling stuck.

Ginger, my friend is the bass player. He's very photogenic, but I can't feature him, he's not the band leader. The main dude isn't very photogenic, and often puffs out his throat like a bullfrog when he's singing! This is the best shot of him that I have. Their music is sort of like Dave Matthews, if that means anything to you. It's really quite good to my ignorant ears. I go to their shows for the practice and challenge of shooting them - I'm normally not a big concert goer. It was getting embarassing - I shot three shows and had no pictures I thought were worth showing to them. They were probably wondering about the strange guy who ostentatiously took photos but never had anything to show for it. I'm glad the fourth show had better lighting and gave me some keepers! I'm stubborn about not using a flash - I find it lights-up too much of the ugly background. Patch talked me into considering a snoot, but I haven't practiced with it yet. Truth to tell, I'm intimidated by flash and haven't made the time to train myself. I hate numbers!

[DavidTO]

David, thanks for picking on the two things that have been bugging me the most. I need to fix the perspective of the drummer, it's not consistent with the other two. But my biggest concern is the band name. They don't have a true logo. And I cannot replicate in PS the font that they use on their website. (http://www.derekclegggroup.com/default.php)

In fact, I find that PS comes with an extremely limited set of fonts, very frustrating and constraining. And a label in the drop-down menu apparently doesn't guarantee that the font is actually there - many come up blank or looking so crude as to be incorrect. So I'm feeling stuck.



A little bit of research should turn that font up for you. Can you ask them to have the person who designed the website help you out with that? Is that the look that they want to keep?

There's plenty of free fonts, too. (http://www.pcfonts.com/index.php)

[ian408]

You might try swapping the upper right/lower left shots to help with
the perspective. Also, you can find some free fonts here (http://www.fontsite.com/Pages/FFDownloads.html)as well.

Ian

[luckyrwe]

My ideas are strictly from a parleting standpoint.

Come up with 3-4 designs on the poster. Make small changes, like put the text in another corner. Make 2 horizontal styles and 2 verticals. Use different color paper. Now you can choose the best design to post depending on where it wil be placed asn a advertisement.

Also folks who saw one of the signs will see another version and stop to read it, thus reinforcing the ad in their mind. If they saw the exact same ad, they would unconciously pass it by.

[wxwax]

Cool, free fonts! Thanks guys. By the way, where do I save these to make them active in PS?

Lucky, great suggestion, thanks. But do you have any idea how long it took me to get even a crude page curl!! :lol3

[ian408]

Cool, free fonts! Thanks guys. By the way, where do I save these to make them active in PS?

Lucky, great suggestion, thanks. But do you have any idea how long it took me to get even a crude page curl!! :lol3
I would imagine all you need to do is install them in the correct system folder.
c:\windows\fonts.

As a side note, the site I refered you to has a whole bunch of other info on
typography (plus Sean rides).

Ian

[cletus]

* the text lower right leaves me flat, relative to the rest of the doc. find a different font, do something to give it some depth or texture. :nod


Also I think you might want to back off on the drop shadows a bit. You could leave the distance the same, just back off on the opacity a touch. When I look directly at one of the pictures, I can easily see the edge of the picture floating above the drop shadow. When I glance around the rest of the poster and a picture is just in the field of view (but not being focused on) the picture & dropshadow tend to blend together. Don't know why but it bothers me :dunno

[wxwax]

:nod


Also I think you might want to back off on the drop shadows a bit. You could leave the distance the same, just back off on the opacity a touch. When I look directly at one of the pictures, I can easily see the edge of the picture floating above the drop shadow. When I glance around the rest of the poster and a picture is just in the field of view (but not being focused on) the picture & dropshadow tend to blend together. Don't know why but it bothers me :dunno

Thanks Cletus, much appreciated. I'll do it.

[ginger_55]

Sid, I can appreciate everything you are saying, I hate numbers, too.

All I wanted to do today was make a simple collage for my brother, and boy was there a cool one in Scott Kelby's PS CS book. He said it was the simple one. I got one photo in the layers thing, another photo in it, pulled up the gradient thing, and then I couldn't do one more thing. In other words, I did about 1 1/2 steps out of 10 in a simple tutorial. And by everyone's main book man, too.

I did it OK, for the occasion, but I wanted to learn Kelby's way.

The two people who I can understand here, well, I can understand Pathfinder best. And it was because of Thomas that I can do extractions, he gave me every move. I have this stuff printed out.

Don't tell Andy, but I can't understand him at all. Once someone gets to a certain place, their brain seems to change, starts speaking the proper language. And that is my problem in the first place. If I knew the language I could do the stuff.

I am using my flash now, but I agree that if you can get anything with a band without flash you are probably better off.

I like your poster, and I bet they would, too. I would really like my birthday thing for my brother if I hadn't seen what I COULD have done if I could have "read" our man, Kelby.

ginger (Oh, snoot??? hahahaha, think I saw the word before, somewhere)

[wxwax]

I know what you mean about the language, Ginger. Seems like every field has its own verbiage, which often acts as a barrier to easy assimilation by newbies.

[wxwax]

In case some of you are as unfamiliar as I am with adding new fonts to Photoshop, here's how you do to on a Window XP machine.

1/ Download the file with the new font to your machine (I put them on the desktop.)

2/ Click on file to open it. Use the Windows Wizard to unzip the file. If you click yes to all the options, you'll end up with a new folder with a True Type file in it. You'll recognize the True Type file because it has a double-T on it.

3/ Go to Start/Control Panel/Fonts, open the folder.

4/ Drag your True Type into the newly opened Fonts folder. It takes a second to load, and it then appears in Photoshop.

Dead simple. I downloaded about 70-80 new fonts this afternoon! Thanks Ian and David. :thumb

[ian408]

80--that's a fontload!


ian

[wxwax]

80--that's a fontload!


ian

:nod I went nuts! I was sooo frustrated by PS's lack of fonts. I got lots of fun stuff, some of which may actually be useful! :lol3

BTW, I've sort of figured out why some Fonts don't work even though they came with Photoshop. When i look at them in the Fonts Folder, instead of having a double "T" for True Type, the ones that don't work all have a red "A" for "All Res."

Anyone have any idea how to make the "All res" fonts active in Photoshop? I reckon there must be a way, since the darned things came with the program. :dunno

[ginger_55]

I know what you mean about the language, Ginger. Seems like every field has its own verbiage, which often acts as a barrier to easy assimilation by newbies.

HUH? LOL, you mean like Jargon?

g

Thanks for the info on putting the fonts in, not that I am getting fonts right now. I will file all this, and I assume it will be in the archives under Fonts.

[wxwax]

OK, after several more hours learning how to do the page curl, here's the second version of the poster. I was asked to include web URLs, address etc. for the club and the band. It was suggested that i simplify the poster.

Anyay, whaddya think? Any comments?

http://wxwax.smugmug.com/photos/13801434-L.jpg

[ian408]

I like the simplified image and main title. But the layout is confusing.

When I look at this, I'm not sure if I want to surf the web or go see them.
Maybe put the URL's in the lower border? Maybe move the address down
with the club name with a smaller font and on one line?

Ian

[wxwax]

Thanks Ian, that's exactly what I was worried about. It's a lot of info for a simple flier. Back to the drawing board.

[dragon300zx]

Hmm for what its worth here's my two cents. Whats the demographics of this bands audience and those that frequent CJ's. Older, Younger, Male, Female. It does make a difference as to how they will look at it. If its a younger group of people remember that we are all freaks with ADD and simple is boring. The original works for that (it would grab my attention at least) although on the original I would lower the point on the curl away from the B. I would add the bands website URL in fine print at the top and the cj's at the bottom. Fine print will be easy enough to notice but won't stand out as bad to look like clutter. I also liked the background on the first attempt better.

The second poster works great if its an older more relaxed croud however... I would keep all the information on that poster at the bottom of the page and try to add in another photo or two at the top where the information is right now.

Personally I wouldn't do the poster itself in PS. I would do the photo work in ps and compose the poster in a publishing program like illustrator, publisher, corel draw, etc. Can it be done with some of the elements in color? Gotsta remember the demographics though. Who do you want to attract, and what to these people like, what will get there attention and make them willing to drop everything else in there life to show up to this event?

[DavidTO]

A little thing...

You don't need the prepositions "in" or "on"

[wxwax]

Dragon, great feedback, thanks. The crowd will be folks in their 20s, maybe a few older. I've given thought to the demographic, but can't say I'm skilled enough to tailor the product, beyond not picking fuddy-duddy fonts. Absent any real skill, I'm going for clear communication and a visually interesting look. No flier I can make will cause people to drop everything and go see the show!

I think we all agree the web addresses aren't working where they are. I have some ideas. I tried putting the band's URL on the frets of the guitar, but the angle makes that position hard to read. It will probably end up somewhere in the photograph. And that leaves the CJ's info, not sure about that yet.

David, I put the "on" in to make it a little more chatty. Probably doesn't matter much one way or the other. :dunno I'll prolly end up removing it for room and less clutter.

[dragon300zx]

Mid 20's thats my croud. GO with the photo layout in the first version drop that page curl down lower and you know the rest of what I said.

[wxwax]

Well, he's asked me twice to only include the main dude, so I guess he means it. We'll see. What I really got from your feedback was that there wasn't a main point of focus, and that there wasn't much impact. So I've moved the URLs and played with sizes for more impact.

Version 3.

http://wxwax.smugmug.com/photos/13841864-L.jpg

[dragon300zx]

i like that one alot better but it needs more flash in the top corner's

[wxwax]

Thanks again, dragooner. One more version. I amped the font some more.

Version 4.

http://wxwax.smugmug.com/photos/13842745-L.jpg

[dragon300zx]

looks good to me.

[ian408]

Hiya Waxy!


Sorry, karaoke night.

The only thing missing is "why should I look at the poster?". I'd add the word
"Live" to emphasize the band will be appearing live at CJ's. Otherwise, it's a
great poster!

Cheers,
Ian

[wxwax]

Hiya Waxy!


Sorry, karaoke night.

The only thing missing is "why should I look at the poster?". I'd add the word
"Live" to emphasize the band will be appearing live at CJ's. Otherwise, it's a
great poster!

Cheers,
Ian
Good suggestion! I'll try that. I've been searching for something, wasn't sure what... but what's missing is that idea of closing the sale, giving the thing some urgency. I think dragoon had felt that as well.

[dragon300zx]

Exactly. Something to make it a "must see" event or at least express that feeling in the poster.

[cletus]

Looking good sid :thumb

One question/comment(s) - To me it looks like the "CJs Landing in Buckhead" text is being revealed by the page curl. Is this the look you were going for? If so, I'd recomend getting rid of the white halo around the C & J and let the page curl shadow flow over them. In addition the G in LANDING is out past the right edge of the "page". My slightly eratic brain goes through the following process: Ok, the "CJs LANDING IN BUCKHEAD" text is underneath the page -> the page is curled up revealing the text -> the right edge of the text is past the right edge of the page -> if the page wasn't curled the last bit of LANDING would still be visible -> why would only the last bit of LANDING be visible but not the rest of the text?-> why? -> why? -> wh...........

FYI on my crummy LCD monitor the bottom left corner of the "page" pretty much blends into the background. I was going to suggest that you modify the gradient on the page to prevent that, but I took a look at the poster on the LaCie and I saw that there is an edge there. You might want to make sure that the edge shows up on your final output device.

[wxwax]

Looking good sid :thumb

One question/comment(s) - To me it looks like the "CJs Landing in Buckhead" text is being revealed by the page curl. Is this the look you were going for? If so, I'd recomend getting rid of the white halo around the C & J and let the page curl shadow flow over them. In addition the G in LANDING is out past the right edge of the "page". My slightly eratic brain goes through the following process: Ok, the "CJs LANDING IN BUCKHEAD" text is underneath the page -> the page is curled up revealing the text -> the right edge of the text is past the right edge of the page -> if the page wasn't curled the last bit of LANDING would still be visible -> why would only the last bit of LANDING be visible but not the rest of the text?-> why? -> why? -> wh...........

FYI on my crummy LCD monitor the bottom left corner of the "page" pretty much blends into the background. I was going to suggest that you modify the gradient on the page to prevent that, but I took a look at the poster on the LaCie and I saw that there is an edge there. You might want to make sure that the edge shows up on your final output device.


Excellent! Thanks for taking a look, Cletus. I softened the bottom left so it wouldn't conflict with the fonts I put there. I'll take another look. Interesting about the shadow on CJ's, I deliberately put a glow on the font so that it wouldn't be obscured by the shadow. But you're right, logically it should be in the shadow.

[wxwax]

No point in having a horse if you can't beat it dead. Here's version 6, I think. Cletus, I tried to add more edge to the bottom left, I hope it shows enough.

http://wxwax.smugmug.com/photos/13903527-L.jpg

[ian408]

Waxy! This one's lookin' pretty good...but...you need to rotate the "Live"
so that it's either level or similar in rotation to the other text.

Ian

[wxwax]

Waxy! This one's lookin' pretty good...but...you need to rotate the "Live"
so that it's either level or similar in rotation to the other text.

Ian
Thanks Ian. Hmmm, I'm not sure I agree with you on this one. I'm thinking it needs to counterbalance the direction of the main title. I'll try it the other way, but I must admit I was admiring myself for having instinctively rotated it the way I have it! :D

[wxwax]

I dunno, ian, I think it's better the other way.

http://wxwax.smugmug.com/photos/13913056-L.jpg

[cletus]

No point in having a horse if you can't beat it dead. Here's version 6, I think. Cletus, I tried to add more edge to the bottom left, I hope it shows enough. Waxy,

Looks good :thumb

I think having the shadow on top of the CJ's looks good. What do you think???

[ian408]

I dunno, ian, I think it's better the other way.


I suggested the rotation because the two lines of text created an arrow
point drawing the eye away from the main subject.

I like this version. Maybe creating a taller "L" followed by text that forms
a flat bottomed "V" at the "E!"?

Regardless of how the live ends up, I think you've done a wonderful job
creating the poster.

Ian

[wxwax]

Waxy,

Looks good :thumb

I think having the shadow on top of the CJ's looks good. What do you think???
:nod Yup, I agree. thanks for suggestions, they all made a lot of sense.

In fact, thanks to everyone for their feedback, the thing's obviously been transformed thanks to your keen feedback.

[wxwax]

I suggested the rotation because the two lines of text created an arrow
point drawing the eye away from the main subject.

I like this version. Maybe creating a taller "L" followed by text that forms
a flat bottomed "V" at the "E!"?

Regardless of how the live ends up, I think you've done a wonderful job
creating the poster.

Ian
Thanks again, ian. The reason I like the Live rotated in a direction that's opposite to the large title, is that it seems to enclose everything and give it balance. With the two leaning in the same direction, it all looks open-ended to the right, to my eye.

I sure do appreciate the time you've taken to look and critique, it's been incredibly helpful. :thumb

[ian408]

I sure do appreciate the time you've taken to look and critique, it's been incredibly helpful. :thumb
And thanks for sharing your ideas. Been a good learning experience all around!

Ian