As you can see, I have updated the graphics on the blog, and there is a reason for it. I'm now going to talk about the branding of the show – which I will be able to use when presenting my idea and will make my life a little easier as I have to figure out a way to present everything that I plan to make. As I already have some experience knowing how to brand something (well, I did learn a lot from the B&L team in publications, and that that my work consists of critiquing designs and working very closely with the marketing team), it's something that I believe will make my project stand out from the rest of the non-designer's honours work.
I also believe that the marketing has to somewhat encompass everything that the music represents (my views have already made it into a blog post). In this case of branding, I'm focusing on two different things: The musical and my project. I have to reinforce the fact that the brand is all into the woods, but still be able to represent my project.
Keeping with most of the posters, I'm representing the musical with a single tree, but making it my own by making it up of letters. There is this really cool app on my MacBook called “LetterMPress” and it's one of my favourite apps (I also have it on the iPad.) It's basically a digital letter press, where you have to place the letters as though it were one. Of course it's not completely accurate to the real thing, but I think it's fine to play around with and get a somewhat aged look to any typographic piece if you don't mind spending hours hand tweaking text.
I created the tree and the other parts of the typography in this program, and I think it turned out well. I was going to put a border around it – will have to see what it looks like first. However, I think it's strong enough as it is but could always do with a little bit of tweaking. I'm not 100% sure on the colour yet, but as I'm not sure what colour the stage is going to be, colour choices can wait.
How is this 'logo' (if you can call it that) going to represent what will be on stage? I think this is the way that I will be creating trees for the popup books. As I play around with the LetterMPress, I should be able to make a few different looking trees a set of four for each book that I want on stage (for a total of 2 spreads taken up by trees). All the typography would be in black, on a nice coloured buff piece of thick cardboard/whatever material that is suitable to use for the pop-ups. It will be as though all the letters from the story will have merged into a few odd looking trees, and this represents the musical as a fractured fairy tale.
I still haven't seen a live show as of yet in this year, which I know is bad of me. I have had a heap of opportunities to go and see a show, and talk about their use of typography. However, I still think that most people tend not to use typographic features in their stage designs because it can detract a heap from the performance. I'm just hoping that I'm not breaking a giant rule of stage design by using typography on stage, but I guess that's what my honours thesis is about – are we able to use it even though that many people think that it should be used?
I don't see only typography on stage as a giant revolution, it can only work in some cases and may work if you go with a minimalistic set design. The cases that typography will work is mainly when the musical/play is based off a book already. Even so, I don't think Les Miserables will benefit from the students wielding guns made out of J's and t's, or the Valjean stealing an silver candle stick made from a c and 2 y's. It's such a serious musical that even though it had been based off a book, using letterforms in that case will modify the emotion that is evoked from the musical.
I don't think that this is a problem with Into the Woods. It already is a light hearted musical, and the fact that everything is made out of letters will be amusing enough for the audience, but the actors will be able to shine though the use of typography and all attention will turn to them.
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