Karrin Allyson: Final Poster Statement + Process

After listening to Karrin Allyson's music and researching her work, I attempted to communicate this visually through the use of different rhetorical tropes; pun, parody, allegory, antithesis, irony, metaphor, metonymy, senecdoche, hyperbole, and personification. However, after pursuing the direction that used hot air balloons, I realized that the concept was too weak for the viewer to connect with Allyson's music. Since the objective of this poster is to advertise the upcoming show at the Folly Theater, I developed an alternative direction. This proved to be a good choice and I was still able to incorporate many of the rendering methods I had experimented with on the first few rounds of digital iterations. My final poster uses metaphor to compare Karrin Allyson's music to a smooth (and sometimes smokey) flame. Layered on this, I added a musical staff of five vectored lines with notes to make sure the viewer understood this was a musical performance. I added lace to the light red watercolor background to bring out the feminine feel of Allyson's music and kept the flame, almost true to natural color, to show the sultry side of many of her songs. Although I knew the meaning of the bars that begin the musical staff that started the flame, the concept was not clear to many (including the judges) and were taken out of the final design of the poster. The design was put into black and white ads that will appear in the newspaper as well as a billboard to advertise the show on May 7.

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Process:

The project began with the creation of a "moodboard" that gave visual examples of the research I had done over Karrin Allyson.

After this, simple pencil sketches, placed into a matrix, that visually communicated one of the ten rhetorical tropes learned in class; pun, parody, allegory, antithesis, irony, metaphor, metonymy, senecdoche, hyperbole, and personification.

I looked to examples such as this poster to see how others have used rhetorical tropes to visually persuade an audience. This specific one employs personification by making the arrow look like a human hand holding a hand weight and implying action through the circular motion.

In addition to the sketches, I experimented with different types of materials that could be used in adding layers and visual interest to the poster.
From the matrix sketches, I chose four directions that I thought had the best use of the rhetorical tropes as well as in describing Karrin Allyson. Personification (using the muscial staff to simulate her body and music), Pun (using the musical symbols "f" "p" and "m" in different words to describe her), Metaphor (comparing hot air balloons to the style of her music), and Pun (using the staff as the cover to a bed that makes the viewer understand the dream-like style of her music).
After a number of extra sketches, I chose to pursue the "Hot Air Balloon" direction that used metaphor to compare Karrin Allyson's music to a dreamy, floating experience.
From here, digital iterations were made that combined the rendering methods; watercolor, hand-drawn illustrations, vectored lines, etc...
At this point, after a few critiques, I realized that comparing Karrin Allyson's music to hot air balloons may be to abstract of a concept to use when describing a jazz singer. I spent some time going back to my original research and sketches and attempted to more accurately describe Karrin Allyson. After considering more of what had been put onto the moodboard (specifically the candle and smoke), I developed the idea of using metaphor to compare her music to a smokey, sultry flame (that is also dreamy!) as well as further pursuit of the hot air balloon concept.

This concept proved to better communicate Karrin Allyson as jazz artist. Using layered watercolor, vectored lines, and lace, I developed my final direction.

This was the poster I presented to the Folly Theater.
After making my type more readable from a long distance, as well as adjusting the location of the bars that begin the staff (because it was not clear to the viewer without other musical symbols) as well as the orientation of the shadow, my poster is ready to be seen both in the newspaper, on a billboard and at the Folly Theater.