A Delicate Balance

Okay, I really need to start reading some comedies. Well, scripts in general. I haven’t done too many of these experimental posts lately.

And for new readers, I like to pick up a play script and design a poster to promote it. It's an exercise to keep me limber, and I try to shake things up with graphics and text, step outside the comfort zone.

Now back to your  normally scheduled post ...

When you see the name Edward Albee, odds are, you’re not in for a happy fun time.

It was hard to come up with something for this. Then I saw a picture of a mobile from the late 1950s, you know the ones, with the rounded biomorphic shapes. How about a mobile of text with the main wire frayed and unraveling? Whoa … So horrible I can’t even post it. Dreadful. Let us never speak of it again.

Then the image of a house of cards came to mind. Everyone in this play is on edge. Pressures have been building since before we begin the story. The slightest thing will set them off.

Fortunately, there were some decent images in my clip art files, as I do not have the skill to stack cards. I can never get above the second level. Wanting the overall image to be stark, I put the image through the Photoshop mill. I erased the original red background, made it black and white, gave it a dash of overexposure, plus some transparency to wash it out some more, yet being careful not further compromise the detail on the cards.

I placed the image on a white backdrop. Oh yes. This works. It’s stark, almost bleak. (Yeah, when I start talking about how excited I’m getting over something so depressing, I really need to read some comedies.) The lesson here is you do not always need to fill every square inch with color or graphics. Embrace the white space.