The Black Heart Procession and Artistic License

This poster for The Black Heart Procession was illustrated on the floor of my mother-in-law's Berkeley house. Noting the bands rather dark leanings and thus using various funereal ephemera, I based the illustration on a 1920s burial announcement.

This was my first concert poster for a big-name band. Concert posters are perhaps my favorite illustration project as I usually have full artistic license. Artists themselves, band members tend to trust my vision of their music and allow for complete creative autonomy. Developing my own themes, fonts and color schemes provides the spark to develop a piece that is truly unique yet maintains the band's musical energy.

Watercolor, Art Deco & the Travel Poster

It has been ages since I have executed a watercolor painting. Nowadays, I almost exclusively use gouache as it produces an even matte tone suitable for screenprinting.

However, if a commissioned piece is to be color-copied from a high-quality scan, watercolor makes a wonderful showing.

The poster pictured draws its origins from a decidedly Art Deco aesthetic. I designed the alphabet used for the font myself based on various Art Deco alphabets. Inspiration from 1920s French travel posters provided beach scenes and coastal play portraying leisure summer afternoons perfectly coinciding with the notion of a summer camp located directly on the beautiful Pacific Ocean.