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gallery 2 | That's showbiz poster designs | That's showbiz info

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info: That's showbiz - poster designs

The first assignment I ever had as a graphic artist was to design a poster for a school play, Synge's The Playboy of the Western World. Since then I've been involved in the world of theatre, music and performance, onstage, backstage and even under the stage (don't ask). I have acted, sung, danced, written, directed, produced and stage managed for all kinds of productions. As a designer, I have designed and built sets, stages and props as well as producing posters, postcards, programmes, flyers, T-shirts...

All too often, the publicity is the last thing theatre directors consider, especially when scheduling and budgeting. This usually means that the graphic designer has to work very quickly for little money. So what's new?

On the other hand, if the designer is brought in early enough it can be exciting and rewarding to read a script, watch as the production evolves through the rehearsals, produce a poster which hopefully captures the right spirit, then see the whole thing come together on the first night. Pure magic.

Carlo Domeniconi, composer and guitarist

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Carlo Domeniconi composer and guitarist

poster design for a concert series

photography & poster design © David John 2009

Since 2004 I have been designing the CD covers for the Italian composer and guitarist Carlo Domeniconi's "Selected Works" series. At the time of writing (March 2010) the seventh of a projected total of 16 CDs is nearing completion.

During this long-term project I have photographed the composer a number of times. Some of the photos will be appearing on davidjohnberlin soon.

See also Carlo Domeniconi's website: carlodomeniconi.de

info: That's showbiz - poster designs

Novalis Eurythmy performance poster design

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"Within ourselves or nowhere must lie the reason for everything"

An approach to Novalis

Eurythmy to the first "Hymn to the Night"

Music from the Cello Suites by J.S. Bach

Text by Hans Paul Fiechter

performed by: Birgit Alles, Konstanze Gundudis, Heike Houben, Ingrid Schweitzer, Stefan Lenz, Thomas Ahrndt

produced by: Birgit Hering

costume design: Konstanze Gundudis

publicity design: David John

Berlin, November-December 2004

portrait of Novalis

Novalis (1772-1801), German romantic poet and novelist

"The imagination places the world of the future either far above us, or far below, or in a relation of metempsychosis to ourselves. We dream of traveling through the universe - but is not the universe within ourselves? The depths of our spirit are unknown to us - the mysterious way leads inwards. Eternity with its worlds - the past and future - is in ourselves or nowhere. The external world is the world of shadows - it throws its shadow into the realm of light. At present this realm certainly seems to us so dark inside, lonely, shapeless. But how entirely different it will seem to us - when this gloom is past, and the body of shadows has moved away. We will experience greater enjoyment than ever, for our spirit has been deprived."

(from 'Miscellaneous Observations', 1798)

Friedrich Leopold, Freiherr von Hardenberg, took his pseudonym Novalis from "de Novali", a name formerly used by his family.

Of noble and well-connected stock (a Freiherr was equivalent to a baron), Friedrich Leopold studied philosophy, law and later geology, and served as a government official.

But as Novalis he was the author of poetry and prose whose themes were spiritual, philosophical and romantic.

He wrote "Hymnen an die Nacht" ("Hymns to the Night"), his only complete collection of poetry, following the death of his first love Sophie von Kühn in 1797.

His work was well thought of during his own lifetime, and he has been called "the prophet of Romanticism". Novalis' friend Friedrich Schiller called the romantics "exiles pining for a homeland".

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), the Scottish author, described Novalis as "an anti-mechanist - a deep man, the most perfect of modern spirit-seers." You can find Carlyle's essay on Novalis (1829) at:

http://novalis.autorenverzeichnis.de/carlyle/2.html

info: That's showbiz - poster designs

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"Salonika"

poster design for a production of Louise Page's play at the South London Theatre

ink drawing & computer-set type, 1993

Louise Page's play "Salonika" is about an English woman and her grown-up daughter who travel to Greece to visit the father's war grave. The two Britishers abroad are out of their depth, culturally and emotionally. The black comedy is sometimes surreal, with strong sexual undercurrents.

Since the play is set on a beach near Thessalonika, the lonely Macedonian shore of the Northern Aegean Sea (which has never enjoyed a tourist boom) sprang to mind for the poster design. At night it is a place of dreams, memories and falling stars. The very British cup and saucer is the falling soldier, with the teaspoon as rifle falling from his shoulder. The spilling tea is his blood, his seed, but also the coastline of the three peninsulars of Halkidiki, east of Salonika, around which innumerable wars have been fought over millenia.

During the twentieth century, several places along the North Aegean coasts were places of pilgrimage for comrades and relatives of those who fell in both world wars. The most famous is Gallipoli where thousands of Australian and New Zealand troops died in World War I.

Here I have brought two oft-recurring pictorial elements of my work - the sea and the teacup - together in one design.

If you are interested in the area of the Northern Aegean and Greek Macedonia around Thessalonika (also known as Salonika or Saloniki), there are photos and information in the photo gallery.

The North Aegean Sea

near Thessalonica

photo:

info: That's showbiz - poster designs

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The Plastic Jesus Tour

line drawing for a concert poster

ink & Letratone, 1989

"I don't care if it rains or freezes
As long as I've got my plastic Jesus
Hanging from the dashboard of my car..."

So goes the tongue-in-cheek country song made internationally famous by Paul Newman in the film "Cool Hand Luke". The English sculptor and musician Peter McLean, who sang this as part of his cowboy repertoire, dreamed up the infamous Plastic Jesus Tour as a series of impromptu concerts with friends in London pubs.

The idea was very... um ... spontanious, and I found myself designing the poster on my employer's kitchen table during my lunchbreak. The crucifix hangs from the rear view mirror rather than the dashboard as it should, strictly-speaking. But that's showbiz.

I only recently discovered that the type of cactus shown in the picture is called a Joshua tree on hearing an interview with U2's Bono in which he explained how he came up with the name for one of their albums.

The drawing was based on a number of sketches I had made from life some years before while travelling in an ancient car with friends Mike Brady and Bärbel. The story of that particular journey would make a great road movie some day. Once, while bumping down a country road, a truck ahead of us spilled part of its load of potatoes over Bärbel's poor old jalopy.

info: That's showbiz - poster designs

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"The Boy Friend"

poster design for a production of Sandy Wilson's musical at the South London Theatre

ink, gouache & Letraset, 1993

Never been a great fan of musicals, myself, no matter how hummable some of the songs are. But Sandy Wilson's show about lovelorn youngsters at the seaside during the 1920s has an innocent charm and is lots of fun. I was also an assistant stage manager (or was it assistant assistant stage manager?) on this production, which was a hoot.

The strange jargon, manners and fashions of the middle class fun-lovers - the first teenagers; the early jazz music (albeit a sanitized version for white folk) and the dance fads, such as the Charleston, that went with it; a notion of romantic love heavily influenced by popular literature, magazines, songs and movies; and the summer seaside holiday, with its parties, dances and air of freedom and abandon. A heady mix.

A pair of lovers dancing free, silhouetted by an over-sized moon, the land and sky melted in a cool jazzy blue... How romantic

There is a touch of Art Deco in the simplified forms, the stylized frame and the use of the Broadway Engraved typeface. The idea for the silhouette comes from my admiration of popular illustrators of the 19th century, especially in the German periodical the "Münchener Bilderbogen".

This one's for Melissa.

info: That's showbiz - poster designs

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"Veronica's Room"

line drawing for a theatre poster

ink drawing, 1993

Here's a warning: Do not enter Veronica's room.

A very dark play, full of growing menace, and not for the squeamish. A warped world glimpsed through a slightly open door. Even the ace of spades shaped keyhole threatens. But let's not give too much away.

info: That's showbiz - poster designs

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Strings Like Wings

poster & CD cover designs for the band Strings Like Wings

computer drawing, 1999

Keith, the drummer of Strings Like Wings, sketched the basis for this design on the back of an envelope one evening in Cafe Harlem, one of Berlin's few jazz venues. The rest, as they say, is history.

Once again, names can be misleading: if "strings like wings" conjurs up an image of a host of harp-playing angels arranging themselves nimbly on the head of a plectrum, forget it. This has to be one of the loudest, meanest rock combos east of Aachen.

If you like loud & mean, this is the stuff for you.

Keith has since left the band, taking his drums and his envelopes with him. All the best Keith - we always pegged you for a blues man anyhow.

info: That's showbiz - poster designs

Notstand, theatre poster and postcard design

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The North Aegean Sea

near Thessalonica

photo:

"Notstand"

poster and postcard design for Wilfried Oschisching's play

computer drawing, 2000

The play Notstand by the Austrian playwright Wilfried Oschisching was premiered with great success under the direction of Eva-Karen Tittmann in Berlin's Theaterdock.

Notstand means state of emergency or dire straits, which describes the condition of two of the three characters. They dream of escape from desperate urban poverty and of swimming free in the ocean. The idea of such a transformation or "sea change" has been a used as a powerful device by poets and dramatists for centuries and was a great favourite of Shakespeare (especially in The Tempest). Oschisching used this device to considerable effect, and Tittmann's direction of a scene in which the two characters enact their fantasy was a powerful and convincing piece of theatre.

The director was very clear that she wanted an image of waves coming to the shore for the poster. It is the strongest memory most of us landlubbers have of the sea. We stand outside looking on, with a mixture of awe, dread and hope. Dare we dip our toes in?

Some years later I took a series of photos of such a beach with waves running in, one of which you can see among my photos of Macedonia in the photo gallery.