Poster design for AIGA Atlanta's 2016 Poster Show + Mixtape Collaboration fundraiser

About the Fundraiser

In early 2016, I was asked by the local AIGA programming committee to participate in a new fundraising event: the Poster Show + Mixtape Collaboration. Designers from across the city chose their own favorite song and designed a unique poster as a tribute. With over one hundred fifty submissions, the top sixty designs – of which my poster was one – were chosen for display at a live gallery event. Proceeds from the event went toward AIGA's annual programming.

About the Design

I chose to design a poster for Duke Ellington's "Jeep's Blues." Duke's Live at Newport is one of my favorite albums, and this particular song mixes sensual crescendos and seemingly-floating-away piano riffs in a way that really grabs me. I wanted to create a visual metaphor for that evocative sound. Distorting a blank music sheet, I illustrated a group of music bars that twist and bend, push and pull – sometimes slow and easy, sometimes fast and harsh. To me, this feels like the song (and, feels like jazz in general, for what it's worth). The track's title disperses across the lines unevenly and with a sense of air, and the entire composition hangs in a field of blue – for an obvious visual connection to the name of the song, as well as making the design overall seem like stars fading into pre-dawn light, the memory of being out at a jazz club the night before with friends and strangers now like a hazy dream.