Subscribe by RSSCoucou Bleu Poster Design
Published on May 15th, 2008 || 1 Excellent Comment
For those of you who are wondering what happened to me, unfortunately, the last three weeks have been crazy for me. The company I worked for eliminated 600 positions on April 25 including mine. Unemployed life has been quite hectic—applying for jobs, scrambling to make ends meet and wrapping up freelance projects has left me little time for blogging.
That said, I am going to try to do a better job even through the stress of it all. While I’m finishing up my entry on the history of the Roman alphabet, I thought it might be nice to share one of my freelance projects with all of you.
Without Further Ado…Coucou Bleu
Coucou Bleu is a vintage jazz band located in Portland, OR. Their tunes are inspired by artists such as Billy Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, but with a French influence in the arrangements. The band manager wanted a classy poster with a French feel. He also wanted it to be reusable for different dates and locations.
When I inquired about the origin of the name, he told me a similar band, L’heure Bleue (The Blue Hour), inspired it. The blue hour is the hour at twilight when the sky turns a deep shade of blue. Coucou was chosen to denote time as in a cuckoo clock and because there is a French jazz musician by the name of Django Reinhardt that wrote a song called Coucou.
The manager provided the photo which was taken by Evrim Icoz Photography and features the Portland skyline during the blue hour behind the lead singer. I searched through hundreds of Art Nouveau posters for inspiration. Although, the Art Nouveau period happened around 1890-1905, which was before this style of jazz existed, I felt it would kill two birds with one stone—create a vintage feel and give the poster a French quality. I experimented with different ways of combining Art Nouveau with modern photography. I finally settled on the feather border to refer to the cuckoo bird. It’s almost as if she has wings. I chose Eccentric for the headline font, which was originally issued as a caps-only type by The American Type Founders Company about 1898. I left the tan space at the bottom blank to allow them to write in the time, date and location as needed.
What are your thoughts?
Type Exercise: Designing a Cliché
Published on April 30th, 2008 || 3 Excellent Comments
This is a type design exercise I did while I was attending the Art Institute of Phoenix. It proved to be one of my favorite projects, so I decided to share it with you here.
Project | Typographically Represent a Cliché
Purpose
To understand the expressive quality of words in a phrase and explore type as a […]
My Logo Nominated for Logo Design Love Awards
Published on April 7th, 2008 || 3 Excellent Comments
David Airey’s newest blog Logo Design Love has been featuring various logos from many lesser-known blogs in his Logo Design Love Awards. I am happy to announce that my personal logo was nominated for this week’s competition. You can vote for me here.
If you care to read more about my logo these two posts are […]
Type Exercise: Creative Type Alignment
Published on April 4th, 2008 || 3 Excellent Comments
After generating so much interest with my first type exercise, John at i Love Typography asked me to put together regular exercises for the readers of his blog. I believe he will be turning it into a contest, so if you would like to participate, visit iLT for contest rules. As for me, I’m really excited about […]
Poster Design Inspiration: Nothing Like a Dame
Published on April 2nd, 2008 || Leave Your Thoughts
My main side job is designing for the local swing dance groups. Consequently, I constantly look through vintage and vintage inspired posters for inspiration. Today, I ran across these two posters for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
The poster on the left caught my eye while I was searching for cabaret posters on Google Images. The hand-drawn […]
What’s Your Logo Font?
Published on March 26th, 2008 || 9 Excellent Comments
A few people have inquired about the font I chose for my personal logo. When I first chose the font, I selected it because it felt like me. Could I be any more ambiguous?
When I was searching for the perfect font for my logo, I wanted something inviting, somewhat feminine and dealt with the negative […]
Designing Expressive Words
Published on March 20th, 2008 || 28 Excellent Comments
The fifth project in Designing with Type is to explore the expressive quality of words through typography. I remember doing this project on several occasions while I was attending the Art Institute of Phoenix, but this time around, I gave myself greater parameters.
I limited myself to the five classic typefaces the book discussed in […]
Designing with Type
Published on March 18th, 2008 || 2 Excellent Comments
I have been feeling sick for about a week and a half now. Over the weekend my immune system finally said, “You win!” Consequently, the couch became my constant companion except for my short trip to the bookstore for some new design books.
I could probably vent for an entire blog entry about how poorly designed […]
Flyer and Poster Design for PLS
Published on March 13th, 2008 || 4 Excellent Comments
Recently, I offered to design promotional materials for the Portland Lindy Society’s (PLS) regular weekly dance. They are the nonprofit swing dance group in Portland and their flyers needed a bit of design help. Since I was actively involved in marketing their recent large event, I thought it would benefit them if they had flyers […]
Branding and Design for Eugene, Oregon
Published on March 11th, 2008 || 3 Excellent Comments
If you visit Eugene, Oregon’s City Council website, you are greeted with “Welcome to the City of Eugene World’s Greatest City of the Arts & Outdoors.” That slogan makes me laugh for several reasons. A declaration of being the “World’s Greatest” anything is absurd and subjective, but most of all because the slogan is supposed […]