Tattered Seams Play T-shirt & Poster

Creative Process
The first thing I did after receiving the information on how the t-shirt & poster should be designed, is write down my objective and accumulate information about topics that the play revolves around. I studied how circuses are represented & found out that their designs are full of order within disorder. This means that I'd find outlining shapes to be very messy, & the filling inside them to be patterned & ordered. Furthermore, the common theme for what circuses represent is false happiness, so it fit right in with the theme of the play. I then went through a few roughs, & scanned the best for a t-shirt & for a poster.


Visual Language

For the t-shirt, I put a ring of fire surrounding a high angle view of the ring master. This shows that the circus workers are trapped in a world of despair, & makes them look small & insignificant to the world. The "Tattered Seams" writing is fancy hence showing disorder, & it's sitting atop the flames to emphasize the point of the play having a dismal feel. The marionettes at the sides are surrounding the ring master because they represent the circus worker's dreary thoughts. Furthermore, their hands are supposed to look large because I wanted them to look all-controlling & I drew them with the idea of how a humonculus looks.


For the poster, the font is an old western broken down messy serif typeface so to emphasize a disordered contour. The colour that was used for the words "Tattered Seams" is wine, the background is gold, and the tent stripes are dirty red & light gray. All of these colours have at least a hint of gray in them because it made the poster's appearance look dirty & gloomy. I left plenty of empty space around to make the poster look clean and straightforward. The gradual fade to black in the middle is a visual metaphor for how in the middle of the family circus, there is despair.


Technical Procedure (The same for both t-shirt & poster)
After choosing the best rough sketches, I scanned them using the Image Capture application. I opened them onto Adobe Illustrator so I could make the final out of clean lines. I drew the "Tattered Seams" text with the pen tool while making slight adjustments along the way. I used rulers to make sure everything was either centered fully or centered on a side. I then tested out many background colours & lastly I put in the gradient black fade.

Final Reflection
I am satisfied with the final product. The poster is unified, clean & uses the information hierarchy that shows the play's brand first & the details later for anyone who's interested. The t-shirt design is frippery, & captures the mood of the play well. Though, I do think it is too unorganized, and thus unappealing. I do think I met the requirements for the client, especially since there were few. Ultimately, I learned how to operate Adobe Illustrator a lot better, & much about what circuses represent.