Design for Coastal Drive’s tour poster
Problem:
Create a poster for the band Coastal Drive, advertising their new tour, “Going Back to California.”
Solution:
When starting this project I first decided to listen to the band’s music, asked them what ideas they had for the poster, and finally determined the genre that they would be considered. After that, I looked at other posters and albums of similar bands and began sketching ideas.
I determined that the band had various genres, but they mainly sounded like indie and hard rock with some classic rock backgrounds. The band liked the idea of a simple poster with the frontman in it, and they did not give any other input. Then, I looked at fonts and other art and had an idea.
The concept would be the frontman of the band submerged underwater, sitting in a chair, with bubbles leading to text at the top of the page. I wanted the subject to wear tropical clothes in the water to represent California and deep blues to represent the ocean or coast. We then did a photo shoot in the pool which was more difficult than I thought because the subject had to sink to the bottom, hold their breath, let out as much air as possible slowly, and then swim back to the surface before repeating the entire process.
Once the pictures were done, I made slight adjustments to the hue and saturation as well as edited out a vent that was under the chair. Then I started to put text. I took inspiration from the Red Hot Chili Peppers album, “Blood Sugar Sex Magik,” because I thought that the text going around the poster, facing the middle seemed enticing and brought attention to the center of the poster, which is where the bands name would be.
The main challenge I faced during this project was taking the picture due to the subject having a hard time holding their breath and due to the perfect timing and framing that was necessary for the photograph to work.
Programs:
Adobe Photoshop and InDesign