Digitally Speaking

Creating graphics the size of a building can be an intimidating prospect for some people. I deal with the issues of proper files set up all day. Questions like “should the art be vector or raster, what resolution do I need to provide and so on come up every day. I’ve found, over the last few months, that if you provide your artwork as a .tif file with an end resolution of at least 75 ppi, you should be golden. Most artwork doesn’t need more than that. If you are doing something complex in Illustrator, I find that it’s the file rips and works better if you rasterize your art before you send it to us. In other words, give us a .tif file. For the most part, a .tif is the least complex of digital files from a data standpoint and the simplicity rips and prints much easier. You can call me if you are in doubt but for the most part, this is the case.

Image resolution and quality

It’s the time of year when Holiday shows are ramping up. Sets are being developed, designed and produced. I’ve worked on a couple of shows lately creating winter downtown areas complete with decorations like ribbons, wreaths, decorated trees and the like using supplied photographic assets. The one thing I’ve run into lately that I felt some people needed help with is understanding the importance of starting any design project with the highest quality imagery you can get your hands on. If you’re creating the design in house using photographic assets and assembling them to create a desired look, it will help you in the long run if you either shoot or have shot the desired photos. You can also use a stock photo house that sells royalty free high res images. Some photo houses now allow you to download up to 25 images a day for a nominal cost. Resolution, quality and image size add up to a better quality printed piece from us, and will enhance the production quality of your show.

Festival Stage

This was a very interesting project to work on. With this stage we used both our Heavy Knit product for the more opaque pieces like the main body of the backdrop and we used a Supreme Mesh product for the legs and the eye in the center of the main backdrop so that a large video screen could be viewed at a particular times during the show, through the eye, yet appear opaque when lighted from the front during the rest of the show. The challenge on this project was to make the two piece come together and appear seamless. The background art came to us as one piece and we digitally cut so it would print exactly the same size on the Supreme Mesh as it did on the Heavy Knit without excessive overlap. The end result is a stunning visual feast for the eyes. View pictures at by clicking here.

Little Big Town Drapes

A while back I had the pleasure of working with Little Big Town to develop a custom graphic treatment for their tour with Sugarland.

The band came to me with the idea of doing four drapes that would gather near the bottom. Their vision was to capture an antique damask motif like the old wallpaper you see in grand southern homes.

For me, this was an awesome graphic challenge to tackle. I’d never designed wallpaper before much less antique damask style wallpaper. I addressed it by gathering several pieces of reference material and  addressing the design of the main larger graphic first. Having the largest piece designed helped set the tone for the project and gave me a direction for creating the smaller supporting graphics that complimented the boarders of the main graphic. The most time consuming part of the challenge was making the pattern work in a way that repeated properly. Once the pattern was complete  and duplicated properly both left and right, up and down I duplicated the pattern and sized it to fill the designated image area correctly.  I then added age to the pattern with digital custom made noise and scratches, one piece at a time, keeping in mind at all times that the design, scratches and all had to work well with the lighting effects to create mood, look and feel. The end result worked well and allowed for a dramatic compliment their show. It can be seen on this link. 

Original illustration. A great value.

A couple of years ago, we did an original illustration of  Ted Nugent as Uncle Sam for tour backdrop. The advantage of creating an illustration from the ground up in the largest possible usable form is afterward he was able to use the art to extend the value of his investment. That same illustration was used on his tour merchandise as well as the cover of a book he wrote and on promotional materials.

I’ve seen this done a few times. When original digital art has enough data and is built right it can be used in many applications as a tool to promote your business and generate funds for you.

Michelle Branch backdrop

I recently designed the new backdrop for Michelle Branch for her 2011/2012 tour. I was approached by her creative team with the idea of putting together an eclectic stack of vintage amplifiers. The first task was to acquire images of vintage amps so that I could create a believable piece of art. As luck would have it, a music store that carries vintage amps was just ten miles away (Back Stage Music, Lake Orion) and they were willing to let me come a shoot all the pictures I needed.

The backdrop turned out fantastic.  Michelle liked it so much she invited me to her show, when they came through town, just to meet me and thank me for my work. No higher praise in my book. 

The lights are on.

Creating mood and taking a crowd to another place at a show is the ultimate goal of designing a concert experience. People often only think of stage lights in terms of the trusses that hang over the stage to create color and sometime patterns.

One thing you might want to consider in the planing stages is the use of lights through cutouts in your printed backdrop. We can print directly to opaque and see through mesh materials. Integrating both materials buy cutting out either structured shapes (windows, doors) or more random free form shapes (abstract patterns, eyes?) and then bringing the entire piece together to create awesome effects, glows and ambience. Be it a sunset effect, lights in the windows of a building or glowing eyes, etc… its up to your imagination.

Backdrops for System of a Down

Back in mid April, we were so excited to be approached by Chris Roberts on a large project of digitally printed backdrops for System of a Down.  Chris explained that they were looking for four (yes, FOUR) backdrops, each 30′ h x 60′ w.  That is 7,200 square feet of printing alone (not considering the hours spent in sewing the backdrops).

The project sounded especially cool, because they weren’t looking for 4 identical backdrops.  Instead, they wanted to utilize four different images – one image per backdrop – and each image was unique. 

The first image was a snow-capped mountain scene – very dramatic!  We found a photo of it on Flickr – check it out!  With the blue-tinged lighting, it really evokes the feeling of ice and snow.  A gorgeous desert scene in oranges is a great contrast to the mountain scene – just as dramatic, but this time evoking heat.  The third image was a terrific rendition of the band’s logo in white on a black background.  Finally, a hand image completes the series of backdrops.

The artist for two of the images (the mountain and the desert) was – you guessed it – John Rios (frequent contributor to this blog), and he also prepped the band’s existing images (logo and hand) for printing.

The seamless integration of illustration and design

The goal in working with any artist is to capture their essence so well that the design becomes a kind of extension of the artist or the statement the artist is making. I learned the real power of this when I asked a friend of mine who had attended a concert where I had illustrated a huge backdrop what he thought of the art? He replied “What backdrop?.” My first reaction was, “Are you kidding?” it was the biggest thing on the stage. I then realized what he was/wasn’t saying was that what I had created was so “in brand/in sync” with the artist that all thirty feet of the art made a seamless statement.

That moment really showed me the power of what its all about… Enhancing a performance and contributing to the creation of an unforgettable artist/fan experience with every project.

The Power of the Quick Sketch

As I mentioned in my first post, I was contacted by Megan to work on the backdrops and other soft goods for Crue Fest II tour. I had the pleasure of working with a creative genius, Mr.Scott Holthaus, to help him manifest his vision for the show.

Crue Fest II celebrated a milestone anniversary for Motley Crue’s wildly successful Dr. Feelgood album. Every detail down to the CMYK value of the tiles was carefully considered. The concept was to create the insane asylum that is indicated on the Dr. Feelgood album cover as it would look if you revisited the facility twenty years later. The concept had vast possibilities so we decided to do a series of quick sketches first to narrow down a direction. Obviously these are not award winning illustrations but more so used like a storyboard would be in a movie. They indicate size, scale and perspective as well as content so that we can cut right to the chase on the computer once the direction is decided. It does take a person of vision, like Scott, but the end result is a faster development from an production art standpoint. This project was mammoth so it did take a few weeks to complete but, the quick sketches let us work out details and cut right to production worthy art within 24 hours of our first conversation. If you’re developing an involved or complex concept, I’d welcome working out the details with you in the same fashion.